The Order of the Phoenix reading book five
by dhj
Summary: I know this has been done million times. Anyway.  Some people of the Order of the Phoenix plus Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, George and later some others are going to read the fifth Harry Potetr book. This is my first FanFiction so Please be paitent.
1. Chapter 1

Everything belongs to the one and only J.K Rowling. Except for the stuff I wrote. That belongs to me.

Ginny PoV

'What the...'  
>Ginny picked herself up from the floor and looked around. Just Minutes ago she had been cleaning one of the old and dusty rooms of Grimmauld Place number 12, and now she was...<p>

Well_, where_ exactly _was _she?

She pulled her wand out. Constant vigilance. The room was medium sized and hat two comfortable looking couches and some armchairs in it. But before she could make out anything else there was a loud `BANG' and Ginny saw a pile of people on the floor.

'What the hell?'

'RON'

'Where _are_ we?'

'WANDS OUT'

The last comment, of course, was Moody's.

'Ginny, what are _you_ doing here?', Ron asked.

'I don't know Ron. I was brought here two minutes ago'. _Really,_ she thought_, how thick can you get_?

'SLENCE', Moody bellowed. 'It seems that we've been brought here to read a book.'

'How d'ya know that?' Fred asked.

'Well', Dumbledore's calm voice spoke,' I found a book laying on one of the couches. It is called Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix. There is also a note from "we are far to many people to sign all this so just callus the next gen" which says that this is a book which picks up from about when we all left and show us the future. Two more books will appear when we finished this, also there will be more people coming. So if you would all sit down, we could start reading'

'But', Sirius brought in,'what if this is just a trick?'

'Well, there is no way out of this room, so we'll just have no other choice I believe', Snape sneered.

'Believe me Black, I have not the desire to hear about that spoiled brats life but...'

Before Sirius could comment on that, Dumbledore started to read:

**Harry Potter is due to start his fifth year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is desperate to get back to school and find out why his friends Ron and Fermion have been so secretive all summer. However, what Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...**

Harry groaned. ' So this is a book from my point of view?', he assumed.

'I believe so Mr. Potter. Ms. Weasley, as you were the first one here, why don't you start reading'

And with that, Dumbledore handed the book to an excited and also a bit nervous Ginny.


	2. The Ministry of Magic

**The Harry Potter Books are not mine.**

**As you may have noticed I'm not a native speaker, so if there are grammar mistakes...**

**General PoV**

**"The Ministry of Magic." **Ginny read.

**Harry awoke at half past five the next morning as abruptly and completely as if somebody had yelled in his ear. For a few moments he lay immobile as the prospect of the disciplinary hearing**

'Oh no, the disciplinary hearing', Harry moaned.

'You'll be fine.' Hermiones voice wasn't as calm as she wished it was

**filled every tiny particle of his brain, then, unable to bear it, he leapt out of bed and put on his glasses.**

All of the Weasley's were looking at Harry comfortingly (is that right this way?) , which-sadly- made him feel no better.

**Mrs. Weasley had laid out his freshly laundered jeans and T-shirt at the foot of his bed. Harry scrambled into them. The blank picture on the wall sniggered. **

Sirius growled. Ahh, how he hated his family.

**Ron was lying sprawled on his back with his mouth wide open, fast asleep.**

At this, the twins, Harry and Hermione sniggered but stopped quickly when they saw Ron's ears coloring in an alarming shade of red.

**He did not stir as Harry crossed the room, stepped out on to the landing and closed the door softly behind him. Trying not to think of the next time he would see Ron, when they might no longer be fellow students at Hogwarts, **

'Don't talk rubbish Harry' Ron said.

**Harry walked quietly down the stairs, past the heads of Kreacher's ancestors, and down into the kitchen.**

**He had expected it to be empty, but when he reached the door he heard the soft rumble of voices on the other side. He pushed it open and saw Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Sirius, Lupin and Tonks sitting there almost as though they were waiting for him. **

**All were fully dressed except Mrs. Weasley, who was wearing a quilted purple dressing gown. She leapt to her feet the moment Harry entered.**

"**Breakfast," she said as she pulled out her wand and hurried over to the fire.**

"**M - m - morning, Harry," yawned Tonks. Her hair was blonde and curly this morning.**

'Someone is a little tired here', Sirius teased.

**"Sleep all right?"**

"**Yeah," said Harry.**

"**I've b - b - been up all night," **

All of the Order Members where shooting Tonks understanding looks, while the teenager where looking at each other confused.

'Why..'

'Keep reading Ginny', Mrs. Wealsey said and there was something in her tone that kept them from arguing with that.

**she said, with another shuddering yawn. "Come and sit down…"**

**She drew out a chair, knocking over the one beside it in the process.**

At this, Tonks blushed. _Why did she _have_ to be so clumsy? And Remus was there. What would he think of he- STOP THAT_, she told her brain. Why was she thinking about him so often recently?

"**What do you want, Harry?" Mrs. Weasley called. "Porridge? Muffins? Kippers? Bacon and eggs? Toast?"**

"**Just - just toast, thanks," said Harry.**

'Just toast for breakfast?', Ron looked at Harry like he completely lost his mind.

'Not e_veryone_ can eat no matter of what situation they're in, Ron' Ginny snapped and continued reading

**Lupin glanced at Harry, then said to Tonks, "What were you saying about Scrimgeour?"**

"**Oh… yeah… well, we need to be a bit more careful, he's been asking Kingsley and me funny questions…"**

The Order members furrowed their brows (Do you say it like this?). This was not good. Not at all.

**Harry felt vaguely grateful that he was not required to join in the conversation. His insides were squirming. Mrs. Weasley placed a couple of pieces of toast and marmalade in front of him; he tried to eat, but it was like chewing carpet. Mrs. Weasley sat down on his other side and started fussing with his T-shirt, tucking in the label and smoothing out the creases across his shoulders. He wished she wouldn't.**

Mrs. Weasley looked at Harry apologetic which made him feel very bad.

'It's not your fault. I guess I'm just really nervous.'

"… **and I'll have to tell Dumbledore I can't do night duty tomorrow, I'm just too tired," Tonks finished, yawning hugely again.**

And again, all of the teenager where looking at the adults with a questioning look, while most of the seemed to be very interested in the ceiling, the carpet and their hands.

"**I'll cover for you," said Mr. Weasley. "I'm okay, I've got a report to finish anyway."**

**Mr. Weasley was not wearing wizards' robes but a pair of pinstriped trousers and an old bomber jacket.**

'That's what those Muggles wear, isn't it?' he asked, looking at Harry and Hermione, who turned red and stuttered things like: 'yeah, well' , 'Umm' and 'At least'.

Ginny took this as a good point to continue reading.

**He turned from Tonks to Harry.**

"**How are you feeling?"**

**Harry shrugged.**

"**It'll all be over soon," Mr. Weasley said bracingly. "In a few hours time you'll be cleared."**

_Or I will be expelled,_ Harry thought.

**Harry said nothing.**

"**The hearing's on my floor, in Amelia Bones's office. She's Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and the one who'll be questioning you."**

'That's good', Lupin said. 'she is fair. You'll be fine...I hope'

**"Amelia Bones is okay, Harry," said Tonks earnestly. "She's fair, she'll hear you out."**

'That's what I'm saying'

**Harry nodded, still unable to think of anything to say.**

"**Don't lose your temper," said Sirius abruptly. "Be polite and stick to the facts."**

'You're the one to talk Black', Snape sneered.

Sirius just shot him a dark look.

**Harry nodded again.**

"**The law's on your side," said Lupin quietly. "Even underage wizards are allowed to use magic in life-threatening situations."**

**Something very cold trickled down the back of Harry's neck; for a moment he thought someone was putting a Disillusionment Charm on him, then he realized that Mrs. Weasley was attacking his hair with a wet comb. She pressed hard on the top of his head.**

'Not going to work', Harry, Ron, Lupin and Sirius all said at the same time.

"**Doesn't it ever lie flat?" she said desperately.**

**Harry shook his head.**

**Mr. Weasley checked his watch and looked up at Harry.**

"**I think we'll go now," he said. "We're a bit early but I think you'll be better off at the Ministry than hanging around here."**

"**Okay," said Harry automatically, dropping his toast and getting to his feet.**

"**You'll be all right, Harry," said Tonks, patting him on the arm.**

"**Good luck," said Lupin. "I'm sure it will be fine." '**

"**And if it's not," said Sirius grimly "I'll see to Amelia Bones for you…"**

Ron laughed, but it sounded a little bit too hysterically.

**Harry smiled weakly. Mrs. Weasley hugged him.**

"**We've all got our fingers crossed," she said.**

"**Right," said Harry. "Well… see you later then."**

**He followed Mr. Weasley upstairs and along the hall. He could hear Sirius's mother grunting in her sleep behind her curtains. Mr. Weasley unbolted the door and they stepped out into the cold, Grey dawn.**

"**You don't normally walk to work, do you?" Harry asked him, as they set off briskly around the square.**

'Of course not', George said confused. 'Why would he be walking if he could just apparate or floo there?'

Harry just shrugged.

"**No, I usually Apparate," said Mr. Weasley, "but obviously you can't, and I think it's best we arrive in a thoroughly non-magical fashion… makes a better impression, given what you're being disciplined for…"**

'That's true', Lupin mused.

**Mr. Weasley kept his hand inside his jacket as they walked. Harry knew it was clenched around his wand. The run-down streets were almost deserted, but when they arrived at the miserable little underground station they found it already full of early-morning commuters. As ever when he found himself in close proximity to Muggles going about their daily business, Mr. Weasley was hard put to contain his enthusiasm.**

Everyone laughed at that. Well, with the exception of Mrs. Weasley, who shoot her husband an angry look which silenced him at once, Moody, who wondered if there where any Death eaters nearby, and Snape, who looked extreamly bored.

"**Simply fabulous," he whispered, indicating the automatic ticket machines. "Wonderfully ingenious."**

"**They're out of order," said Harry, pointing at the sign.**

"**Yes, but even so…" said Mr. Weasley, beaming at them fondly.**

**They bought their tickets instead from a sleepy-looking guard (Harry handled the transaction, as Mr. Weasley was not very good with Muggle money) **

'It is just so different', Mr. Weasley said with a dreamy look on his face.

**and five minutes later they were boarding an underground train that rattled them off towards the center of London. Mr. Weasley kept anxiously checking and re-checking the Underground Map above the windows.**

"**Four more stops, Harry… Three stops left now… Two stops to go, Harry…"**

**They got off at a station in the very heart of London, and were swept from the train in a tide of be suited men and women carrying briefcases. Up the escalator they went, through the ticket barrier (Mr. Weasley delighted with the way the stile swallowed his ticket), and emerged on to a broad street lined with imposing-looking buildings and already full of traffic.**

"**Where are we?" said Mr. Weasley blankly, **

'Arthur!' Mrs. Wealsey exclaimed.

**and for one heart-stopping moment Harry thought they had got off at the wrong station despite Mr. Weasley's continual references to the map; but a second later he said, "Ah yes… this way, Harry," and led him down a side road.**

Everyone looked very relived at that.

"**Sorry," he said, "but I never come by train and it all looks rather different from a Muggle perspective. As a matter of fact, I've never even used the visitors' entrance before."**

**The further they walked, the smaller and less imposing the buildings became, until finally they reached a street that contained several rather shabby-looking offices, a pub and an overflowing dumpster. Harry had expected a rather more impressive location for the Ministry of Magic.**

Everyone who has already been in the ministry just smiled at him.

"**Here we are," said Mr. Weasley brightly, pointing at an old red telephone box, which was missing several panes of glass and stood before a heavily graffitied wall. "After you, Harry."**

**He opened the telephone-box door.**

**Harry stepped inside, wondering what on earth this was about. Mr. Weasley folded himself in beside Harry and closed the door. It was a tight fit; Harry was jammed against the telephone apparatus, which was hanging crookedly from the wall as though a vandal had tried to rip it off.**

**Mr. Weasley reached past Harry for the receiver.**

"**Mr. Weasley, I think this might be out of order, too," Harry said.**

'Of course it is Potter. You aren't going to call anyone from there. It's the visitors entry'

'Yeas Potter, how can anyone be so stupid', the twins imitated Snape.

"**No, no, I'm sure it's fine," said Mr. Weasley, holding the receiver above his head and peering at the dial. "Let's see… six…" he dialed the number, "two… four… and another four… and another two…"**

**As the dial whirred smoothly back into place, a cool female voice sounded inside the telephone box, not from the receiver in Mr. Weasley's hand, but as loudly and plainly as though an invisible woman were standing right beside them.**

"**Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."**

"**Er…" said Mr. Weasley, clearly uncertain whether or not he should talk into the receiver. He compromised by holding the mouthpiece to his ear,**

Harry and Hermione smiled at this.

"**Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, here to escort Harry Potter, who has been asked to attend a disciplinary hearing…"**

"**Thank you," said the cool female voice. "Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."**

**There was a click and a rattle, and Harry saw something slide out of the metal chute where returned coins usually appeared. He picked it up: it was a square silver badge with Harry Potter, Disciplinary Hearing on it. He pinned it to the front of his T-shirt as the female voice spoke again.**

"**Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."**

**The floor of the telephone box shuddered. They were sinking slowly into the ground. Harry watched apprehensively as the pavement seemed to rise up past the glass windows of the telephone box until darkness closed over their heads. Then he could see nothing at all; he could hear only a dull grinding noise as the telephone box made its way down through the earth. After about a minute, though it felt much longer to Harry, a chink of golden light illuminated his feet and, widening, rose up his body, until it hit him in the face and he had to blink to stop his eyes from watering.**

**"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day," said the woman's voice.**

**The door of the telephone box sprang open and Mr. Weasley stepped out of it, followed by Harry, whose mouth had fallen open.**

'Yes. It has it's certain charm', Tonks smiled.

**They were standing at one end of a very long and splendid hall with a highly polished, dark wood floor. The peacock blue ceiling was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols that kept moving and changing like some enormous heavenly notice board. The walls on each side were paneled in shiny dark wood and had many gilded fireplaces set into them. Every few seconds a witch or wizard would emerge from one of the left-hand fireplaces with a soft whoosh. On the right-hand side, short queues of wizards were forming before each fireplace, waiting to depart.**

**Halfway down the hall was a fountain. A group of golden statues, larger than life-size, stood in the middle of a circular pool. Tallest of them all was a noble-looking wizard with his wand pointing straight up in the air. Grouped around him were a beautiful witch, a centaur, a goblin and a house-elf. The last three were all looking adoringly up at the witch and wizard. **

'That's just medieval', Hermione said.

'Yeah well, that's the Ministry for you', was Tonks only reply.

**Glittering jets of water were flying from the ends of their wands, the point of the centaur's arrow, the tip of the goblins hat and each of the house-elf's ears, so that the tinkling hiss of falling water was added to the pops and cracks of the Separators and the clatter of footsteps as hundreds of witches and wizards, most of whom were wearing glum, early-morning looks, strode towards a set of golden gates at the far end of the hall.**

"**This way," said Mr. Weasley.**

**They joined the throng, wending their way between the Ministry workers, some of whom were carrying tottering piles of parchment, others battered briefcases; still others were reading the Daily Prophet while they walked. As they passed the fountain Harry saw silver Sickles and bronze Knuts glinting up at him from the bottom of the pool. A small smudged sign beside it read:**

**ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF MAGICAL BRETHREN WILL BE GIVEN TO ST. MUNGO'S HOSPITAL FOR MAGICAL MALADIES AND INJURIES.**

**If I'm not expelled from Hogwarts, I'll put in ten Galleons, Harry found himself thinking desperately.**

"**Over here, Harry," said Mr. Weasley, and they stepped out of the stream of Ministry employees heading for the golden gates. Seated at a desk to the left, beneath a sign saying Security, a badly shaven wizard in peacock blue robes looked up as they approached and put down his Daily Prophet.**

"**I'm escorting a visitor," said Mr. Weasley, gesturing towards Harry.**

"**Step over here," said the wizard in a bored voice.**

**Harry walked closer to him and the wizard held up a long golden rod, thin and flexible as a car aerial, and passed it up and down Harry's front and back.**

"**Wand," grunted the security wizard at Harry, putting down the golden instrument and holding out his hand.**

**Harry produced his wand. The wizard dropped it on to a strange brass instrument, which looked something like a set of scales with only one dish. It began to vibrate. A narrow strip of parchment came speeding out of a slit in the base. The wizard tore this off and read the writing on it.**

**"Eleven inches, phoenix-feather core, been in use four years. That correct?"**

"**Yes," said Harry nervously.**

"**I keep this," said the wizard, impaling the slip of parchment on a small brass spike. "You get this back," he added, thrusting the wand at Harry.**

"**Thank you."**

"**Hang on…" said the wizard slowly.**

**His eyes had darted from the silver visitors badge on Harry's chest to his forehead.**

'I hate my scar', Harry said.' It's like a big alarm sign that reads look at me, look at me.'

_This couldn't be right_, Snape thought, _surely Potter secretly _loved_ the attention._

"**Thank you, Eric," said Mr. Weasley firmly, and grasping Harry by the shoulder he steered him away from the desk and back into the stream of wizards and witches walking through the golden gates.**

**Jostled slightly by the crowd, Harry followed Mr. Weasley through the gates into the smaller hall beyond, where at least twenty lifts stood behind wrought golden grilles. Harry and Mr. Weasley joined the crowd around one of them. Nearby, stood a big bearded wizard holding a large cardboard box which was emitting rasping noises.**

"**All right, Arthur?" said the wizard, nodding at Mr. Weasley.**

"**What've you got there, Bob?" asked Mr. Weasley, looking at the box.**

"**We're not sure," said the wizard seriously. "We thought it was a bog-standard chicken until it started breathing fire. Looks like a serious breach of the Ban on Experimental Breeding to me."**

Fred and George suddenly looked very interested. So did Sirius, for the matter of fact.

**With a great jangling and clattering a lift descended in front of them; the golden grille slid back and Harry and Mr. Weasley stepped into the lift with the rest of the crowd and Harry found himself jammed against the back wall. Several witches and wizards were looking at him curiously; he stared at his feet to avoid catching anyone's eye, flattening his fringe as he did so.**

_That was odd_, Snape thought.

**The grilles slid shut with a crash and the lift ascended slowly, chains rattling, while the same cool female voice Harry had heard in the telephone box rang out again.**

"**Level Seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club and Ludicrous Patents Office."**

**The lift doors opened. Harry glimpsed an untidy-looking corridor, with various posters of Quidditch teams tacked lopsidedly on the walls. One of the wizards in the lift, who was carrying an armful of broomsticks, extricated himself with difficulty and disappeared down the corridor.**

**The doors closed, the lift juddered upwards again and the woman's voice announced:**

"**Level Six, Department of Magical Transportation, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office and Apparation Test Center."**

**Once again the lift doors opened and four or five witches and wizards got out; at the same time, several paper aeroplanes swooped into the lift. Harry stared up at them as they flapped idly around above his head; they were a pale violet color and he could see Ministry of Magic stamped along the edge of their wings.**

'Wicked', the twins said in unison.

"**Just inter-departmental memos," Mr. Weasley muttered to him. "We used to use owls, but the mess was unbelievable… droppings all over the desks…"**

**As they clattered upwards again the memos flapped around the lamp swaying from the lift's ceiling.**

"**Level Five, Department of International Magical Co -operation, incorporating the International Magical Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats."**

**When the doors opened, two of the memos zoomed out with a few more of the witches and wizards, but several more memos zoomed in, so that the light from the lamp flickered and flashed overhead as they darted around it.**

"**Level Four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office and Pest Advisory Bureau."**

"Accuse**," said the wizard carrying the fire-breathing chicken and he left the lift pursued by a little flock of memos. The doors clanged shut yet again.**

"**Level Three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, including the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, Obliviator Headquarters and Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee."**

**Everybody left the lift on this floor except Mr. Weasley, Harry and a witch who was reading an extremely long piece of parchment that was trailing on the floor. The remaining memos continued to soar around the lamp as the lift juddered upwards again, then the doors opened and the voice made its announcement.**

"**Level Two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters and Wizengamot Administration Services."**

"**This is us, Harry," said Mr. Weasley, and they followed the witch out of the lift into a corridor lined with doors. "My office is on the other side o f the floor."**

"**Mr. Weasley" said Harry, as they passed a window through which sunlight was streaming, "aren't we still underground?"**

'Yes you are', Kingsleys deep voice said.

'But how..'

'It's called magic Harry', Bill laughed, ( I know, probably not really what he would say, as he doesn't know Harry to well but he had to say something at some time)

"**Yes, we are," said Mr. Weasley. "Those are enchanted windows. Magical Maintenance decide what weather we'll get every day. We had two months of hurricanes last time they were angling for a pay rise… Just round here, Harry."**

**They turned a corner, walked through a pair of heavy oak doors and emerged in a cluttered open area divided into cubicles, which was buzzing with talk and laughter. Memos were zooming in and out of cubicles like miniature rockets. A lopsided sign on the nearest cubicle read: Auror Headquarters.**

**Harry looked surreptitiously through the doorways as they passed. The Aurors had covered their cubicle walls with everything from pictures of wanted wizards and photographs of their families, to posters of their favorite Quidditch teams and articles from the Daily Prophet. A scarlet-robed man with a ponytail longer than Bill's was sitting with his boots up on his desk, dictating a report to his quill. A little further along, a witch with a patch over one eye was talking over the top of her cubicle wall to Kingsley Shacklebolt.**

"**Morning, Weasley," said Kingsley carelessly, as they drew nearer. "I've been wanting a word with you, have you got a second?"**

"**Yes, if it really is a second," said Mr. Weasley, "I'm in rather a hurry."**

**'Why are you so unfriendly?', Ron asked.**

'Because officially they don't know each other you dumb ass', Ginny said.

**They were talking as though they hardly knew each other and when Harry opened his mouth to say hello to Kingsley, Mr. Weasley stood on his foot. **

'See, Harry is a dumb ass, too'

**They followed Kingsley along the row and into the very last cubicle.**

**Harry received a slight shock; blinking down at him from every direction was Sirius's face. Newspaper cuttings and old photographs - even the one of Sirius being best man at the Potters' wedding -papered the walls. The only Sirius-free space was a map of the world in which little red pins were glowing like jewels.**

"**Here," said Kingsley brusquely to Mr. Weasley, shoving a sheaf of parchment into his hand. "I need as much information as possible on flying Muggle vehicles sighted in the last twelve months. We've received information that Black might still be using his old motorcycle." Kingsley tipped Harry an enormous wink and added, in a whisper, "Give him the magazine, ****he might find it interesting." Then he said in normal tones, "And don't take too long, Weasley, the delay on that firelegs report held our investigation up for a month."**

'I bet the article is funny. I want to read it.'

'Ron wanting to read something?', the twins looked like they were hit with a reductor curse. 'what has the world come to?'

"**If you had read my report you would know that the term is firearms," said Mr. Weasley coolly.**

"**And I'm afraid you'll have to wait for information on motorcycles; we're extremely busy at the moment." He dropped his voice and said, "If you can get away before seven, Molly's making meatballs."**

'I think he can get away before seven', Tonks laughed.

**He beckoned to Harry and led him out of Kingsley's cubicle, through a second set of oak doors, into another passage, turned left, marched along another corridor, turned right into a dimly lit and distinctly shabby corridor, and finally reached a dead end, where a door on the left stood ajar, revealing a broom cupboard, and a door on the right bore a tarnished brass plaque reading:**

**Misuse of Muggle Artifacts.**

**Mr. Weasley's dingy office seemed to be slightly smaller than the broom cupboard.**

Ginny looked furious. Maybe her Dads job wasn't as important as being an Auror but this was just...

**Two desks had been crammed inside it and there was barely space to move around them because of all the overflowing filing cabinets lining the walls, on top of which were tottering piles of files. The little wall space available bore witness to Mr. Weasley's obsessions: several posters of cars, including one of a dismantled engine; two illustrations of postboxes he seemed to have cut out of Muggle children's books; and a diagram showing how to wire a plug.**

**Sitting on top of Mr. Weasley's overflowing in-tray was an old toaster that was hiccoughing in a disconsolate way and a pair of empty leather gloves that were twiddling their thumbs. A photograph of the Weasley family stood beside the in-tray. Harry noticed that Percy appeared to have walked out of it.**

"**We haven't got a window," said Mr. Weasley apologetically, taking off his bomber jacket and placing it on the back of his chair. "We've asked, but they don't seem to think we need one.**

'This is just mean', Hermione muttered.

**Have a seat, Harry, doesn't look as if Perkins is in yet."**.

**Harry squeezed himself into the chair behind Perkins's desk while Mr. Weasley riffled through the sheaf of parchment Kingsley Shacklebolt had given him.**

"**Ah," he said, grinning, as he extracted a copy of a magazine entitled The Quibbler from its midst, **

'This can't even be funny. The Quibbler is a whole load of rubbish'

Everyone looked at Hermione like she had just said that she forgot her homework.

Blushing, she told Ginny to continue reading.

"**yes…" He flicked through it. "Yes, he's right, I'm sure Sirius will find that very amusing - oh dear, what's this now?"**

**A memo had just zoomed in through the open door and fluttered to rest on top of the hiccoughing toaster. Mr. Weasley unfolded it and read it aloud.**

"'**Third regurgitating public toilet reported in Bethnal Green, kindly investigate immediately.' This is getting ridiculous…"**

"**A regurgitating toilet?"**

"**Anti-Muggle pranksters," said Mr. Weasley, frowning. "We had two last week, one in Wimbledon, one in Elephant and Castle. Muggles are pulling the flush and instead of everything disappearing - well, you can imagine. **

Fred and George looked like Christmas had come early.

'We can do-'

'-the same thing at Hogwarts!'

'This is going to be _so_ much fun'

Quickly, before anyone could say anything, Ginny read on.

**The poor things keep calling in those - pumbles, I think they're called - you know, the ones who mend pipes and things."**

"**Plumbers?"**

"**Exactly, yes, but of course they're flummoxed. I only hope we can catch whoever's doing it."**

"**Will it be Aurors who catch them?"**

'Or course not Harry. Aurors are there for a real crime, not something that seems so insignificant', Hermione said,'you know, you should read more'

"**Oh no, this is too trivial for Aurors, it'll be the ordinary Magical Law Enforcement Patrol - ah, Harry, this is Perkins."**

**A stooped, timid-looking old wizard with fluffy white hair had just entered the room, panting.**

"**Oh, Arthur!" he said desperately, without looking at Harry. "Thank goodness, I didn't know what to do for the best, whether to wait here for you or not. I've just sent an owl to your home but you've obviously missed it - an urgent message came ten minutes ago -"**

"**I know about the regurgitating toilet," said Mr. Weasley.**

"**No, no, it's not the toilet, it's the Potter boy's hearing - they've changed the time and venue - it starts at eight o'clock now and it's down in old Courtroom Ten -"**

'This is low', Bills voice was dark, 'they want you to miss it.'

"**Down in old - but they told me - Merlin's beard!"**

**Mr. Weasley looked at his watch, let out a yelp and leapt from his chair.**

"**Quick, Harry, we should have been there five minutes ago!"**

Everyone shot each other scared looks. If Harry came late. It wouldn't make a good impression.

'Thank God you came earlier.', Lupin was looking very white in the face.

**Perkins flattened himself against the filing cabinets as Mr. Weasley left the office at a run, Harry close on his heels.**

"**Why have they changed the time?" Harry said breathlessly, as they hurtled past the Auror cubicles; people poked out their heads and stared as they streaked past. Harry felt as though he'd left all his insides back at Perkins's desk.**

"**I've no idea, but thank goodness we got here so early, if you'd missed it, it would have been catastrophic!"**

**Mr. Weasley skidded to a halt beside the lifts and jabbed impatiently at the 'down' button.**

"**Come ON!"**

**The lift clattered into view and they hurried inside. Every time it stopped Mr. Weasley cursed furiously and pummeled the number nine button.**

"**Those courtrooms haven't been used in years," said Mr. Weasley angrily. "I can't think why they're doing it down there - unless - but no -"**

'Unless what?', Harry asked, but no one answered him.

**A plump witch carrying a smoking goblet entered the lift at that moment, and Mr. Weasley did not elaborate.**

"**The Atrium," said the cool female voice and the golden grilles slid open, showing Harry a distant glimpse of the golden statues in the fountain. The plump witch got out and a sallow skinned wizard with a very mournful face got in.**

"**Morning, Arthur," he said in a sepulchral voice as the lift began to descend. "Don't often see you down here."**

"**Urgent business, Bode," said Mr. Weasley, who was bouncing on the balls of his feet and throwing anxious looks over at Harry.**

"**Ah, yes," said Bode, surveying Harry unblinkingly. "Of course."**

**Harry barely had emotion to spare for Bode, but his unfaltering gaze did not make him feel any more comfortable.**

"**Department of Mysteries," said the cool female voice, and left it at that.**

"**Quick, Harry," said Mr. Weasley as the lift doors rattled open, and they sped up a corridor that was quite different from those above. The walls were bare; there were no windows and no doors apart from a plain black one set at the very end of the corridor. Harry expected them to go through it, **

**but instead Mr. Weasley seized him by the arm and dragged him to the left, where there was an opening leading to a flight of steps.**

"**Down here, down here," panted Mr. Weasley, taking two steps at a time. "The lift doesn't even come down this far… why they're doing it down there I…"**

**They reached the bottom of the steps and ran along yet another corridor, which bore a great resemblance to the one that led to Snape's dungeon at Hogwarts, with rough stone walls and torches in brackets. The doors they passed here were heavy wooden ones with iron bolts and keyholes.**

"**Courtroom… Ten… I think… we're nearly… yes."**

**Mr. Weasley stumbled to a halt outside a grimy dark door with an immense iron lock and slumped against the wall, clutching at a stitch in his chest.**

"**Go on," he panted, pointing his thumb at the door. "Get in there."**

"**Aren't - aren't you coming with -"**

"**No, no, I'm not allowed. Good luck!"**

**Harry's heart was beating a violent tattoo against his Adam's apple. He swallowed hard, turned the heavy iron door handle and stepped inside the courtroom.**

'That's the end of the chapter', Ginny said.

'WHY ARE THEY HOLDING THE TRIAL DOWN THERE. They only hold trials there when the captured deatheaters ore someone like that.', to say that Sirius was furious ( haha, furious Sirius...um..anyway) would have been an understatement.

'They obviously want him to be scared' , Moody replied.

The silenced that followed to this was interrupted by Hermione.

'Can I read next?'

Ginny handed the book to Hermione who began to read.


	3. The Hearing

**Thank's to everyone who has "story alerted" or favorited(?) my story. you made my day! **

**also thank you to Lm Ryder, my first (EVER!) reviewer. To answer your question: They start to read from about the point when they left :D**

**Harry Potter is not mine.**

**And pleaaase review! Bitte, bitte, bitte :D  
><strong>

**"The Hearing," **Hermione read.

**Harry gasped; he could not help himself. The large dungeon he had entered was horribly familiar. He had not only seen it before, he had been here before. This was the place he had visited inside Dumbledore's Pensieve, the place where he had watched the Lestranges sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban.**

"What?", Ron exclaimed. "Why would they hold such a simple trial there?"

"It seems that the Ministry has outdone itself in trying not to realize Voldemort is back" Dumbledore's usually amused voice was grave.

No one commented on that. Everyone was busy wondering how they could possibly win this war when the Ministry not only refused to believe that Voldemort was back, but also fought them.

**The walls were made of dark stone, dimly lit by torches. Empty benches rose on either side of him, but ahead, in the highest benches of all, were many shadowy figures. They had been talking in low voices, but as the heavy door swung closed behind Harry an ominous silence fell.**

"HA, take that. I bet they assumed that he wasn't going to show up. Gave them a nasty little shock I hope" Tonks usually bubblegum pink hair changed into an alarmingly poison green.

**A cold male voice rang across the courtroom.**

"**You're late."**

"Because you changed the time you bastard"

"RON"

Everyone just smiled at this despite the tense situation. Ron and Hermione were really acting like an old couple.

"**Sorry," said Harry nervously "I — I didn't know the time had been changed."**

"**That is not the Wizengamot's fault,"**

"No, it's yours", Sirius muttered darkly.

**said the voice. "An owl was sent to you this morning. **

"More likely an owl was send-"

"-after they made sure it wouldn't reach you"

**Take your seat."**

**Harry dropped his gaze to the chair in the center of the room, the arms of which were covered in chains. He had seen those chains spring to life and bind whoever sat between them. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked across the stone floor. When he sat gingerly on the edge of the chair the chains clinked threateningly, but did not bind him. Feeling rather sick, he looked up at the people seated at the bench above.**

**There were about fifty of them, all, as far as he could see, wearing plum-colored robes with an elaborately worked silver W on the left-hand side of the chest and all staring down their noses at him, some with very austere expressions, others looks of frank curiosity.**

**In the very middle of the front row sat Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic. Fudge was a portly man who often sported a lime-green bowler hat, though today he had dispensed with it; he had dispensed, too, with the indulgent smile he had once worn when he spoke to Harry. A broad, square-jawed witch with very short gray hair sat on Fudge's left; she wore a monocle and looked forbidding. **

"That's Amelia Harry. She is going to hear you out, believe me". Kingsleys calm voice eased the tension a little.

**On Fudge's right was another witch, but she was sitting so far back on the bench that her face was in shadow.**

"**Very well," said Fudge. "The accused being present – finally**

Everyone except (of course) Snape frowned at that.

**- let us begin. Are you ready?" he called down the row.**

"**Yes, sir," said an eager voice Harry knew. Ron's brother Percy**

Mr. Weasley acted as if he didn't hear what Hermione read, the children looked angry and Mrs. Weasley failed trying to hold her tears back.

**was sitting at the very end of the front bench. Harry looked at Percy, expecting some sign of recognition from him, but none came. Percy's eyes, behind his horn-rimmed glasses, were fixed on his parchment, a quill poised in his hand.**

"**Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August," said Fudge in a ringing voice, and Percy began taking notes at once, "into offences committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.**

"**Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Court Scribe, Percy Ignatius Weasley -"**

"**Witness for the defense, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," said a quiet voice from behind Harry, who turned his head so fast he cricked his neck.**

"Dumbledore", everyone sighed in relief.

"Always makes-"  
>"-a good entrace"<p>

**Dumbledore was striding serenely across the room wearing long midnight-blue robes and a perfectly calm expression. His long silver beard and hair gleamed in the torchlight as he drew level with Harry and looked up at Fudge through the half-moon spectacles that rested halfway down his very crooked nose.**

**The members of the Wizengamot were muttering. All eyes were now on Dumbledore. Some looked annoyed, others slightly frightened; two elderly witches in the back row, however, raised their hands and waved in welcome.**

**A powerful emotion had risen in Harry's chest at the sight of Dumbledore, a fortified, hopeful feeling rather like that which phoenix song gave him. He wanted to catch Dumbledore's eye, but Dumbledore was not looking his way; he was continuing to look up at the obviously flustered Fudge.**

"Well he certainly hoped to avoid Dumbledore as a witness" Moody mumbled.

"**Ah," said Fudge, who looked thoroughly disconcerted. "Dumbledore. Yes. You - er - got our – er - message that the time and -er - place of the hearing had been changed, then?"**

"**I must have missed it," said Dumbledore cheerfully…"However, due to a lucky mistake I arrived at the Ministry three hours early, so no harm done."**

"**Yes - well - I suppose we'll need another chair - I - Weasley, could you -?"**

"So its not Weatherby anymore?", Ron asked angrily, " he really _has_ been promoted"

"**Not to worry, not to worry," said Dumbledore pleasantly; he took out his wand, gave it a little flick, and a squashy chintz armchair appeared out of nowhere next to Harry. Dumbledore sat down, put the tips of his long fingers together and surveyed Fudge over them with an expression of polite interest. The Wizengamot was still muttering and fidgeting restlessly; only when Fudge spoke again did they settle down.**

"**Yes," said Fudge again, shuffling his notes. "Well, then. So. The charges. Yes."**

**He extricated a piece of parchment from the pile before him, took a deep breath, and read out, "the charges against the accused are as follows: That he did knowingly, deliberately and in full awareness of the illegality of his actions, having received a previous written warning from the Ministry of Magic on a similar charge, produce a Patronus Charm in a Muggle-inhabited area, in the presence of a Muggle, on the second of August at twenty-three minutes past nine, which constitutes an offence under Paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, and also under Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.**

"**You are Harry James Potter, of number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey?" Fudge said, glaring at Harry over the top of his parchment.**

"**Yes," Harry said.**

"**You received an official warning from the Ministry for using illegal magic three years ago, did you not?"**

"**Yes, but -"**

"**And yet you conjured a Patronus on the night of the second of August?" said Fudge.**

"**Yes," said Harry, "but -"**

"**Knowing that you are not permitted to use magic outside school while you are under the age of seventeen?"**

"**Yes, but -"**

"**Knowing that you were in an area full of Muggles?"**

"**Yes, but -"**

"He isn't even letting me talk?"

No one needed to respond to Harry's angry outburst.

"**Fully aware that you were in close proximity to a Muggle at the time?"**

"**Yes," said Harry angrily, "but I only used it because we were -"**

**The witch with the monocle cut across him in a booming voice.**

"**You produced a fully-fledged Patronus?"**

"**Yes," said Harry, "because -"**

"**A corporeal Patronus?"**

"**A - what?" said Harry.**

"**Your Patronus had a clearly defined form? I mean to say, it was more than vapour or smoke?"**

**"Yes," **

Lupin felt his chest filling with pride. It _had_ been him after all, who taught Harry this.

**said Harry, feeling both impatient and slightly desperate, "it's a stag, it's always a stag."**

"**Always?" boomed Madam Bones. "You have produced a Patronus before now?"**

"**Yes," said Harry, "I've been doing it for over a year."**

"**And you are fifteen years old?"**

"**Yes, and -"**

"**You learned this at school?"**

"**Yes, Professor Lupin taught me in my third year, because of the -"**

"**Impressive," said Madam Bones, staring down at him, "a true Patronus at his age… very impressive indeed."**

Brilliant, Snape thought, _now he will get even more arrogant._

**Some of the wizards and witches around her were muttering again; a few nodded, but others were frowning and shaking their heads.**

"**It's not a question of how impressive the magic was," said Fudge in a testy voice, "in fact, the more impressive the worse it is, I would have thought, given that the boy did it in plain view of a Muggle!"**

**Those who had been frowning now murmured in agreement, but it was the sight of Percy's sanctimonious little nod that goaded Harry into speech.**

Again all of the Weasley children exchanged dark looks.

"**I did it because of the Dementors!" he said loudly, before anyone could interrupt him again. He had expected more muttering, but the silence that fell seemed to be somehow denser than before.**

"**Dementors?" said Madam Bones after a moment, her thick eyebrows rising until her monocle looked in danger of falling out. "What do you mean, boy?"**

"**I mean there were two Dementors down that alleyway and they went for me and my cousin!"**

"**Ah," said Fudge again, smirking unpleasantly as he looked around at the Wizengamot, as though inviting them to share the joke. "Yes. Yes, I thought we'd be hearing something like this."**

"I bet he did. Because it's true" Bill said.

"**Dementors in Little Whinging?" Madam Bones said, in a tone of great surprise. "I don't understand -"**

"**Don't you, Amelia?" said Fudge, still smirking. "Let me explain. **

**He's been thinking it through and decided Dementors would make a very nice little cover story, very nice indeed. Muggles can't see Dementors, can they, boy?**

"They can't?", Harry asked.

To everyone surprise it was Ron, who answered first:"No they can't. As they are magical only witches and Wizards can see them. They can feel them though"

**Highly convenient, highly convenient… so it's just your word and no witnesses…"**

"**I'm not lying!" said Harry loudly, over another outbreak of muttering from the court. "There were two of them, coming from opposite ends of the alley, everything went dark and cold and my cousin felt them and ran for it -"**

"**Enough, enough!" said Fudge, with a very supercilious look on his face. "I'm sorry to ****interrupt what I'm sure would have been a very well-rehearsed story -"**

**Dumbledore cleared his throat. The Wizengamot fell silent again.**

"**We do, in fact, have a witness to the presence of Dementors in that alleyway," he said, "other than Dudley Dursley, I mean."**

**Fudge's plump face seemed to slacken, as though somebody had let air out of it. He stared down at Dumbledore for a moment or two, then, with the appearance of a man pulling himself back together, said, "We haven't got time to listen to more tarradiddles, I'm afraid, Dumbledore. I want this dealt with quickly -"**

"Changing the laws now, are we?", Lupin muttered sarcastically.

"**I may be wrong," said Dumbledore pleasantly, "but I am sure that under the Wizengamot Charter of Rights, the accused has the right to present witnesses for his or her case? Isn't that the policy of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Madam Bones?" he continued, addressing the witch in the monocle.**

"**True," said Madam Bones. "Perfectly true."**

"**Oh, very well, very well," snapped Fudge. "Where is this person?"**

"**I brought her with me," said Dumbledore. "She's just outside the door. Should I -?"**

"**No — Weasley, you go," Fudge barked at Percy, who got up at once, ran down the stone steps from the judge's balcony and hurried past Dumbledore and Harry without glancing at them.**

**A moment later, Percy returned, followed by Mrs. Figg. She looked scared and more batty than ever. Harry wished she had thought to change out of her carpet slippers.**

Everyone laughed at this..

**Dumbledore stood up and gave Mrs. Figg his chair, conjuring a second one for himself.**

"**Full name?" said Fudge loudly, when Mrs. Figg had perched herself nervously on the very edge of her seal.**

"**Arabella Doreen Figg," said Mrs. Figg in her quavery voice.**

"**And who exactly are you?" said Fudge, in a bored and lofty voice.**

"**I'm a resident of Little Whinging, close to where Harry Potter lives," said Mrs. Figg.**

"**We have no record of any witch or wizard living in Little Whinging, other than Harry Potter," said Madam Bones at once. "That situation has always been closely monitored, given… given past events."**

"**I'm a Squib," said Mrs. Figg. "So you wouldn't have me registered, would you?"**

"They don't register squibs?", Hermione asked angrily.  
>"No they don't", Kingsley sighed. It was high time that someone put an end to this corrupt and medieval Ministry.<p>

**"A Squib, eh?" said Fudge, eying her closely. "We'll be checking that. You'll leave details of your parentage with my assistant Weasley. Incidentally, can Squibs see Dementors?" he added, looking left and right along the bench.**

"**Yes, we can!" said Mrs. Figg indignantly.**

**Fudge looked back down at her, his eyebrows raised. "Very well," he said aloofly. "What is your story?"**

"**I had gone out to buy cat food from the corner shop at the end of Wisteria Walk, around about nine o'clock, on the evening of the second of August," **

**gabbled Mrs. Figg at once, as though she had learned what she was saying by heart, "when I heard a disturbance down the alleyway between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk. On approaching the mouth of the alleyway I saw Dementors running -"**

Everyone groaned at that. This wasn't good.

"**Running?" said Madam Bones sharply. "Dementors don't run, they glide."**

"**That's what I meant to say," said Mrs. Figg quickly, patches of pink appearing in her withered cheeks. "Gliding along the alley towards what looked like two boys."**

"**What did they look like?" said Madam Bones, narrowing her eyes so that the edge of the monocle disappeared into her flesh.**

"**Well, one was very large and the other one rather skinny -"**

Everyone laughed at this. Except Snape of course, who seemed to be rather bored.

"**No, no," said Madam Bones impatiently. "The Dementors… describe them."**

"**Oh," said Mrs. Figg, the pink flush creeping up her neck now. "They were big. Big and wearing cloaks."**

**Harry felt a horrible sinking in the pit of his stomach. Whatever Mrs. Figg might say, it sounded to him as though the most she had ever seen was a picture of a Dementor, and a picture could never convey the truth of what these beings were like: the eerie way they moved, hovering inches over the ground; or the rotting smell of them; or that terrible rattling noise they made as they sucked on the surrounding air…**

**In the second row, a dumpy wizard with a large black mustache leaned close to whisper in the ear of his neighbor, a frizzy-haired witch. She smirked and nodded.**

"**Big and wearing cloaks," repeated Madam Bones coolly, while Fudge snorted derisively. "I see. Anything else?"**

"**Yes," said Mrs. Figg. "I felt them. Everything went cold, and this was a very warm summer's night, mark you. And I felt… as though all happiness had gone from the world… and I remembered… dreadful things…"**

**Her voice shook and died.**

All of the people sighed in relive. At least she described how they made you feel correctly.

**Madam Bones's eyes widened slightly. Harry could see red marks under her eyebrow where the monocle had dug into it.**

"**What did the Dementors do?" she asked, and Harry felt a rush of hope.**

"**They went for the boys," said Mrs. Figg, her voice stronger and more confident now, the pink flush ebbing away from her face. "One of them had fallen. The other was backing away, trying to repel the Dementor. That was Harry. He tried twice and produced only silver vapour. On the third attempt, he produced a Patronus, which charged down the first Dementor and then, with his encouragement, chased the second one away from his cousin. And that that is what happened,"Mrs. Figg finished, somewhat lamely.**

**Madam Bones looked down at Mrs. Figg in silence. Fudge was not looking at her at all, but fidgeting with his papers. Finally, he raised his eyes and said, rather aggressively, "that's what you saw, is it?"**

"**That is what happened," Mrs. Figg repeated.**

Despite the situation Harry had to smile. Even though Mrs. Figg was annoying sometimes, she seemed to be keen to help harry out of this.

"**Very well," said Fudge. "You may go."**

**Mrs. Figg cast a frightened look from Fudge to Dumbledore, then got up and shuffled off towards the door. Harry heard it thud shut behind her.**

"**Not a very convincing witness," said Fudge loftily.**

"**Oh, I don't know," said Madam Bones, in her booming voice. "She certainly described the effects of a Dementor attack very accurately. And I can't imagine why she would say they were there if they weren't."**

"**But Dementors wandering into a Muggle suburb and just happening to come across a wizard?" snorted Fudge. "The odds on that must be very, very long. Even Bagman wouldn't have bet -"**

"**Oh, I don't think any of us believe the Dementors were there by coincidence," said Dumbledore lightly.**

**The witch sitting to the right of Fudge, with her face in shadow, moved slightly but everyone else was quite still and silent.**

"**And what is that supposed to mean?" Fudge asked icily.**

"**It means that I think they were ordered there," said Dumbledore.**

"**I think we might have a record of it if someone had ordered a pair of Dementors to go strolling through Little Whinging!" barked Fudge.**

"I don't think Voldemort would write down when and for what he borrows the Dementors, git", Ginny hissed.

_If it was him_, Dumbledore thought, but said nothing.

"**Not if the Dementors are taking orders from someone other than the Ministry of Magic these days," said Dumbledore calmly. "I have already given you my views on this matter, Cornelius."**

"**Yes, you have"' said Fudge forcefully, "and I have no reason to believe that your views are anything other than bilge, Dumbledore. "The Dementors remain in place in Azkaban and are doing everything we ask them to."**

"**Then," said Dumbledore, quietly but clearly, "we must ask ourselves why somebody within the Ministry ordered a pair of Dementors into that alleyway on the second of August."**

"It wasn't Voldemort?", Harry asked surprised.

Dumbledore looked away and didn't respond. Gradually Harry began to feel ignored.

**In the complete silence that greeted these words, the witch to the right of Fudge leaned forwards so that Harry saw her for the first time.**

**He thought she looked just like a large, pale toad. She was rather squat with a broad, flabby face, as little neck as Uncle Vernon and a very wide, slack mouth. Her eyes were large, round and slightly bulging. Even the little black velvet bow perched on top of her short curly hair put him in mind of a large fly she was about to catch on a long sticky tongue.**

"**The Chair recognizes Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister," said Fudge.**

**The witch spoke in a fluttery, girlish, high-pitched voice that took Harry aback; he had been expecting a croak.**

Some people chuckled at this.

"**I'm sure I must have misunderstood you, Professor Dumbledore," she said, with a simper ****that left her big, round eyes as cold as ever. "So silly of me. But it sounded for a teensy moment as though you were suggesting that the Ministry of Magic had ordered an attack on this boy!"**

**She gave a silvery laugh that made the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand up. A few other members of the Wizengamot laughed with her. It could not have been plainer that not one of them was really amused.**

**"If it is true that the Dementors are taking orders only from the Ministry of Magic, and it is also true that two Dementors attacked Harry and his cousin a week ago, then it follows logically that somebody at the Ministry might have ordered the attacks," said Dumbledore politely. "Of course, these particular Dementors may have been outside Ministry control -"**

"**There are no Dementors outside Ministry control!" snapped Fudge, who had turned brick red. Dumbledore inclined his head in a little bow.**

"**Then undoubtedly the Ministry will be making a full inquiry into why two Dementors were so very far from Azkaban and why they attacked without authorization."**

"**It is not for you to decide what the Ministry of Magic does or does not do, Dumbledore!" snapped Fudge, now a shade of magenta of which Uncle Vernon would have been proud.**

"**Of course it isn't," said Dumbledore mildly. "I was merely expressing my confidence that this matter will not go uninvestigated."**

**He glanced at Madam Bones, who readjusted her monocle and stared back at him, frowning slightly.**

"**I would remind everybody that the behavior of these Dementors, if indeed they are not figments of this boy's imagination, is not the subject of this hearing!" said Fudge. "We are here to examine Harry Potter's offences under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery!"**

"**Of course we are," said Dumbledore, "but the presence of Dementors in that alleyway is highly relevant. Clause Seven of the Decree states that magic may be used before Muggles in exceptional circumstances, and as those exceptional circumstances include situations which threaten the life of the wizard or witch him - or herself, or any witches, wizards or Muggles present at the time of the -"**

"**We are familiar with Clause Seven, thank you very much!" snarled Fudge.**

"Well then act like it", Hermione shouted. She had had enough of the way the Ministry treated Harry nowadays.

"**Of course you are," said Dumbledore courteously. "Then we are in agreement that Harry's use of the Patronus Charm in these circumstances falls precisely into the category of exceptional circumstances the clause describes?"**

"**If there were Dementors, which I doubt."**

"**You have heard it from an eyewitness," Dumbledore interrupted. "If you still doubt her truthfulness, call her back, question her again. I am sure she would not object."**

"**I - that - not -" blustered Fudge, fiddling with the papers before him. "It's - I want this over with today, Dumbledore!"**

"No. You want my Godson expelled. If that would take longer you would take your time"

**"But naturally, you would not care how many times you heard from a witness, if the alternative was a serious miscarriage of justice," said Dumbledore.**

**"Serious miscarriage, my hat!" said Fudge at the top of his voice. "Have you ever bothered to tot up the number of cock-and-bull stories this boy has come out with, Dumbledore, while trying to cover up his flagrant misuse of magic out of school? I suppose you've forgotten the Hover Charm he used three years ago -"**

"**That wasn't me, it was a house-elf!" said Harry.**

"**YOU SEE" roared Fudge, gesturing flamboyantly in Harry's direction. "A house-elf! In a Muggle house! I ask you."**

"You know Harry-"

"-we believe you but_"

"this does sound rather crazy"  
>"Well that's Dobby for you", Harry said with a small smile playing around his lips. The twins were always able to make him laugh.<p>

"**The house-elf in question is currently in the employ of Hogwarts School," said Dumbledore. "I can summon him here in an instant to give evidence if you wish."**

"**I - not - I haven't got time to listen to house-elves! Anyway, that's not the only - he blew up his aunt, for God's sake!" Fudge shouted, banging his fist on the judge's bench and upsetting a bottle of ink.**

"**And you very kindly did not press charges on that occasion, accepting, I presume, that even the best wizards cannot always control their emotions," said Dumbledore calmly, as Fudge attempted to scrub the ink off his notes.**

"**And I haven't even started on what he gets up to at school."**

"**But, as the Ministry has no authority to punish Hogwarts students for misdemeanors at school, Harry's behavior there is not relevant to this hearing," said Dumbledore, as politely as ever, but now with a suggestion of coolness behind his words.**

"**Oho!" said Fudge. "Not our business what he does at school, eh? You think so?"**

"**The Ministry does not have the power to expel Hogwarts students, Cornelius, as I reminded you on the night of the second of August," said Dumbledore. "Nor does it have the right to confiscate wands until charges have been successfully proven; again, as I reminded you on the night of the second of August. In your admirable haste to ensure that the law is upheld, you appear, inadvertently I am sure, to have overlooked a few laws yourself."**

"**Laws can be changed," said Fudge savagely.**

"Now", Ron said with an angry but also slightly amazed look on his face, "he has gone completely crazy"

**"Of course they can," said Dumbledore, inclining his head. "And you certainly seem to be making many changes, Cornelius. Why, in the few short weeks since I was asked to leave the Wizengamot, it has already become the practice to hold a full criminal trial to deal with a simple matter of underage magic!"**

**A few of the wizards above them shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Fudge turned a slightly deeper shade of puce. The toadlike witch on his right, however, merely gazed at Dumbledore, her face quite expressionless.**

"**As far as I am aware," Dumbledore continued, "there is no law yet in place that says this court's job is to punish Harry for every bit of magic he has ever performed. He has been charged with a specific offence and he has presented his defense. All he and I can do now is to await your verdict."**

**Dumbledore put his fingertips together again and said no more. Fudge glared at him, evidently incensed. Harry glanced sideways at Dumbledore, seeking reassurance; he was not at all sure that Dumbledore was right in telling the Wizengamot, in effect, that it was about time they made a decision. Again, however, Dumbledore seemed oblivious to Harry's attempt to catch his eye. He continued to look up at the benches where the entire Wizengamot had fallen into urgent, whispered conversations.**

**Harry looked at his feet. His heart, which seemed to have swollen to an unnatural size, was thumping loudly under his ribs. He had expected the hearing to last longer than this. He was not at all sure that he had made a good impression. He had not really said very much. He ought to have explained more fully about the Dementors, about how he had fallen over, about how both he and Dudley had nearly been kissed…**

"You've nearly been kissed Harry? How wonderful. My little boy is all grown up now", the twins chorused.

Harry just threw one of the pillows of the couch at them (needles to say, he missed them)

**Twice he looked up at Fudge and opened his mouth to speak, but his swollen heart was now constricting his air passages and both times he merely took a deep breath and looked back down at his shoes.**

**Then the whispering stopped. Harry wanted to look up at the judges, but found that it was really much, much easier to keep examining his laces.**

"**Those in favor of clearing the witness of all charges?" said Madam Bones' booming voice.**

**Harry's head jerked upwards. There were hands in the air, many of them… more than half!**

Everyone sighed in relief at that. To Harry it felt as if a stone had been lifted of his chest.

**Breathing very fast, he tried to count, but before he could finish, Madam Bones had said, "And those in favor of conviction?"**

**Fudge raised his hand; so did half a dozen others, including the witch on his right and the heavily-mustached wizard and the frizzy-haired witch in the second row. Fudge glanced around at them all, looking as though there was something large stuck in his throat, then lowered his own hand. He took two deep breaths and said, in a voice distorted by suppressed rage, "Very well, very well… cleared of all charges."**

"**Excellent," said Dumbledore briskly, springing to his feet, pulling out his wand and causing the two chintz armchairs to vanish. "Well, I must be getting along. Good-day to you all." And without looking once at Harry, he swept from the dungeon.**

"What?", Sirius asked, "why aren't you talking to Harry?"

Dumbledore chose to ignore him and instead asked:"Who would like to read next?"

"I would!", Tonks said brightly.

And so Dumbledore handed the book over to Tonks.


	4. Thw WOes of Mrs Weasley

_**I do not own harry Potter.**_

**"The Woes of Mrs. Weasley," **Tonks read.

**Dumbledore's abrupt departure took Harry completely by surprise. **

"Yeah, me too", Sirius exclaimed, "why didn't you talk to him? He deserves to know whats going on!"

Dumbledore ignored him and motioned Tonks to continue reading.

**He remained sitting where he was in the chained chair, struggling with his feelings of shock and relief. The Wizengamot were all getting to their feet, talking, gathering up their papers and packing them away. Harry stood up. Nobody seemed to be paying him the slightest bit of attention, except the toadlike witch on Fudge's right, who was now gazing down at him instead of at Dumbledore. Ignoring her, he tried to catch Fudge's eye, or Madam Bones's, wanting to ask whether he was free to go, but Fudge seemed quite determined not to notice Harry, and Madam Bones was busy with her briefcase, so he took a few tentative steps towards the exit and, when nobody called him back, broke into a very fast walk.**

Everyone chuckled at this. They could imagine Harry nearly running out the room and it was a very funny picture indeed.

**He took the last few steps at a run, wrenched open the door and almost collided with Mr. Weasley, who was standing right outside, looking pale and apprehensive.**

"**Dumbledore didn't say -"**

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, but Tonks, who saw this coming read on much louder than before, shooting Sirius a death glare.

"**Cleared," Harry said, pulling the door closed behind him, "of all charges!"**

**Beaming, Mr. Weasley seized Harry by the shoulders.**

"**Harry, that's wonderful! Well, of course, they couldn't have found you guilty, not on the evidence, but even so, I can't pretend I wasn't -"**

"Worried that the Ministry didn't care about that", Lupin muttered.

**But Mr. Weasley broke off, because the courtroom door had just opened again. The Wizengamot were filing out.**

"**Merlin's beard!" exclaimed Mr. Weasley wonderingly, pulling Harry aside to let them all pass.**

"**You were tried by the full court?"**

"**I think so," said Harry quietly.**

**One or two of the wizards nodded to Harry as they passed and a few, including Madam Bones, said, "Morning, Arthur," to Mr. Weasley, but most averted their eyes. Cornelius Fudge and the toadlike witch were almost the last to leave the dungeon. Fudge acted as though Mr. Weasley and Harry were part of the wall, but again, the witch looked almost approvingly at Harry as she passed. Last of all to pass was Percy.**

Again, all of the Weaslys became stone faced and Mrs. Weaslys eyes began to fill with tears.

_What if they didn't make up and one of them got hurt in this terrible war?_

**Like Fudge, he completely ignored his father and Harry; he marched past clutching a large roll of parchment and a handful of spare quills, his back rigid and his nose in the air. The lines around Mr. Weasleys mouth tightened slightly, but other than this he gave no sign that he had seen his third son.**

The present Mr. Weasley also didn't show that he just read about his son. _His son who left the family because of some crazy, power hungry people._

"**I'm going to take you straight back so you can tell the others the good news," he said, beckoning Harry forwards as Percy's heels disappeared up the steps to Level Nine. "I'll drop you off on the way to that toilet in Bethnal Green. Come on…"**

"**So, what will you have to do about the toilet?" Harry asked, grinning. Everything suddenly seemed five times funnier than usual. It was starting to sink in: he was cleared, he was going back to Hogwarts.**

Everyone smiled at this. Harry's good mood was contagious.

**"Oh, it's a simple enough anti-jinx," said Mr. Weasley as they mounted the stairs, "but it's not so much having to repair the damage, it's more the attitude behind the vandalism, Harry. Muggle baiting might strike some wizards as funny, but it's an expression of something much deeper and nastier, and I for one -"**

**Mr. Weasley broke off in mid-sentence.**

"Why?", Ron asked.

"If you would let Tonks read, you would probably find out, git!", Ginny hissed annoyed.

Mrs. Weasley looked at her disapproving, but Ginny ignored her.

**They had just reached the ninth-level corridor and Cornelius Fudge was standing a few feet away from them, talking quietly to a tall man with sleek blond hair and a pointed, pale face.**

"Malfoy", Mr. Weasley hissed. Oh how he hated this man.

"Probably finding out if I got expelled", Harry muttered through his gritted teeth.

"But you didn't", Ron said very satisfied.

**The second man turned at the sound of their footsteps. He, too, broke off in mid-conversation, his cold gray eyes narrowed and fixed upon Harry's face.**

"**Well, well, well… Patronus Potter," said Lucius Malfoy coolly.**

"I bet he can't produce one himself", Sirius said proudly.

**Harry felt winded, as though he had just walked into something solid. He had last seen those cold gray eyes through slits in a Death Eaters hood, and last heard that man's voice jeering in a dark graveyard while Lord Voldemort tortured him. Harry could not believe that Lucius Malfoy dared look him in the face; he could not believe that he was here, in the Ministry of Magic, or that Cornelius Fudge was talking to him, when Harry had told Fudge mere weeks ago that Malfoy was a Death Eater.**

"**The Minister was just telling me about your lucky escape, Potter," drawled Mr. Malfoy. "Quite astonishing, the way you continue to wriggle out of very tight holes… snakelike, in fact."**

Everyone's expressions darkened. The good mood they felt just seconds ago had vanished completely.

**Mr. Weasley gripped Harry's shoulder in warning.**

Mrs. Weasley shot her husband an approving look.

**"Yeah," said Harry, "yeah, I'm good at escaping."**

**Lucius Malfoy raised his eyes to Mr. Weasley's face.**

"**And Arthur Weasley too! What are you doing here, Arthur?"**

"**I work here," said Mr. Weasley curtly.**

**"Not here, surely?" said Mr. Malfoy, raising his eye brows and glancing towards the door over Mr. Weasley's shoulder. "I thought you were up on the second floor… don't you do something that involves sneaking Muggle artifacts home and bewitching them?"**

The Weasley children, Harry and even (to everyone's surprise) Hermione sweard under their breaths. Mrs. Weasley didn't even try try to scold them, she was to angry herself.

"**No," Mr. Weasley snapped, his fingers now biting into Harry's shoulder.**

"Sorry", he said, looking angrier than everyone had ever seen him. Well except this one time when he got into a fight with Malfoy in Flourish and Blotts, but that was a different story.

"**What are you doing here, anyway?" Harry asked Lucius Malfoy.**

"**I don't think private matters between myself and the Minister are any concern of yours, Potter," said Malfoy, smoothing the front of his robes. Harry distinctly heard the gentle clinking of what sounded like a full pocket of gold. "Really, just because you are Dumbledore's favorite boy, you must not expect the same indulgence from the rest of us… shall we go up to your office, then, Minister?"**

"This is unbelievable"; Hermione screeched, " he is "donating" some money and everything is fine? He is a DEATHEATER for goodness sake.

"**Certainly" said Fudge, turning his back on Harry and Mr. Weasley. "This way, Lucius."**

**They strode off together, talking in low voices. Mr. Weasley did not let go of Harry's shoulder until they had disappeared into the lift.**

"**Why wasn't he waiting outside Fudge's office if they've got business to do together?" Harry burst out furiously. "What was he doing down here?"**

"**Trying to sneak down to the courtroom, if you ask me," said Mr. Weasley, looking extremely agitated and glancing over his shoulder as though making sure they could not be overheard.**

**"Trying to find out whether you'd been expelled or not. I'll leave a note for Dumbledore when I drop you off, he ought to know Malfoys been talking to Fudge again."**

"**What private business have they got together, anyway?"**

"**Gold, I expect," said Mr. Weasley angrily. "Malfoy's been giving generously to all sorts of things for years… gets him in with the right people… then he can ask favors… delay laws he doesn't want passed… oh, he's very well-connected, Lucius Malfoy."+**

Again, Hermione looked furious.

**The lift arrived; it was empty except for a flock of memos that flapped around Mr. Weasley's head as he pressed the button for the Atrium and the doors clanged shut. He waved them away irritably.**

"**Mr. Weasley" said Harry slowly, "if Fudge is meeting Death Eaters like Malfoy, if he's seeing them alone, how do we know they haven't put the Imperius Curse on him?"**

All of the children gasped. A minister under the Imperius curse...

"**Don't think it hasn't occurred to us, Harry" said Mr. Weasley quietly. "But Dumbledore thinks Fudge is acting of his own accord at the moment - which, as Dumbledore says, is not a lot of comfort. Best not talk about it any more just now, Harry."**

_He is right, _Hermione thought. _If he isn't behaving like this because he is under a curse but because he didn't want to change his comfortable life...that was even worse._

**The doors slid open and they stepped out into the now almost-deserted Atrium. Eric the watch wizard was hidden behind his Daily Prophet again. They had walked straight past the golden fountain before Harry remembered.**

"**Wait…" he told Mr. Weasley, and, pulling his moneybag from his pocket, he turned back to the fountain.**

**He looked up into the handsome wizard's face, but up close Harry thought he looked rather weak and foolish. The witch was wearing a vapid smile like a beauty contestant, and from what Harry knew of goblins and centaurs, they were most unlikely to be caught staring so soppily at humans of any description. **

Bill smiled: "Too true"

**Only the house-elf's attitude of creeping servility looked convincing. With a grin at the thought of what Hermione would say if she could see the statue of the elf, Harry turned his moneybag upside-down and emptied not just ten Galleons, but the whole contents into the pool.**

"**I knew it!" yelled Ron, punching the air. "You always get away with stuff!"**

"**They were bound to clear you," said Hermione, who had looked positively faint with anxiety when Harry had entered the kitchen and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes, "there was no case against you, none at all."**

"But I was nervous, anyways", Hermione confessed sighing.

"**Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering you all knew I'd get off," said Harry, smiling.**

Some people chuckled at that.

**Mrs. Weasley was wiping her face on her apron, and Fred, George and Ginny were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went: "He got off, he got off, he got off…"**

"**That's enough! Settle down!" shouted Mr. Weasley, though he too was smiling. "Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry -"**

"**What?" said Sirius sharply.**

"**He got off, he got off, he got off…"**

Everyone laughed now. The good mood was there again.

"**Be quiet, you three! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on Level Nine, then they went up to Fudge's office together. Dumbledore ought to know."**

"**Absolutely," said Sirius. "We'll tell him, don't worry."**

**"Well, I'd better get going, there's a vomiting toilet waiting for me in Bethnal Green. Molly, I'll be late, I'm covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner -"**

"**He got off, he got off, he got off…"**

"**That's enough - Fred - George - Ginny!" said Mrs. Weasley, as Mr. Weasley left the kitchen.**

"**Harry, dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast."**

**Ron and Hermione sat themselves down opposite him, looking happier than they had done since he had first arrived at Grimmauld Place, and Harry's feeling of giddy relief, which had been somewhat dented by his encounter with Lucius Malfoy, swelled again. The gloomy house seemed warmer and more welcoming all of a sudden; even Kreacher looked less ugly as he poked his snoutlike nose into the kitchen to investigate the source of all the noise.**

Hermione tired to look at Harry disapproving, but failed miserably as she was so happy herself.

"**Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you," said Ron happily, now dishing great mounds of mashed potatoes on to everyone's plates.**

"**Yeah, he swung it for me," said Harry. He felt it would sound highly ungrateful, not to mention childish, to say, "I wish he'd talked to me, though. Or even looked at me."**

**And as he thought this, the scar on his forehead burned so badly that he clapped his hand to it.**

"**What's up?" said Hermione, looking alarmed.**

"**Scar," Harry mumbled. "But it's nothing… it happens all the time now…"**

**None of the others had noticed a thing; all of them were now helping themselves to food while gloating over Harry's narrow escape; Fred, George and Ginny were still singing. Hermione looked rather anxious, but before she could say anything, Ron had said happily, "I bet Dumbledore turns up this evening, to celebrate with us, you know."**

"Somehow I don't think so", Sirius muttered not able to let go of the fact that Dumbledore didn't talk to Harry.

"**I don't think he'll be able to, Ron," said Mrs. Weasley, setting a huge plate of roast chicken down in front of Harry. "He's really very busy at the moment."**

**"HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF"**

"**SHUT UP!" roared Mrs. Weasley.**

**Over the next few days Harry could not help noticing that there was one person within number twelve, Grimmauld Place, who did not seem wholly overjoyed that he would be returning to Hogwarts. Sirius had put up a very good show of happiness on first hearing the news, wringing Harry's hand and beaming just like the rest of them. Soon, however, he was moodier and surlier than before, talking less to everybody, even Harry, and spending increasing amounts of time shut up in his mother's room with Buckbeak.**

"That's not fair, Padfoot", Lupin muttered to Sirius.

"I know. I'm sorry. I fell so selfish but I would really like for Harry to live with me."

No one heard them as they where whispering.

"**Don't you go feeling guilty!" said Hermione sternly, after Harry had confided some of his feelings to her and Ron while they scrubbed out a mouldy cupboard on the third floor a few days later. "You belong at Hogwarts and Sirius knows it. Personally, I think he's being selfish."**

"**That's a bit harsh, Hermione," said Ron, frowning as he attempted to prize off a bit of mould that had attached itself firmly to his finger, "you wouldn't want to be stuck inside this house without any company."**

"**He'll have company!" said Hermione. "It's Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix, isn't it? He just got his hopes up that Harry would be coming to live here with him."**

"Sorry," Sirius said, now loud enough for everyone to hear.

Harry smiled a him. He wasn't mad. He knew how Sirius felt.

"**I don't think that's true" said Harry, wringing out his cloth. "He wouldn't give me a straight answer when I asked him if I could."**

**"He just didn't want to get his own hopes up even more," said Hermione wisely. "And he probably felt a bit guilty himself, because I think a part of him was really hoping you'd be expelled. Then you'd both be outcasts together."**

"**Come off it!" said Harry and Ron together, but Hermione merely shrugged.**

Professor McGonagall looked at her with an amount of pride. She was proud that this smart girl was in her house.

"**Suit yourselves. But I sometimes think Ron's mums right and Sirius gets confused about whether you're you or your father, Harry."**

"**So you think he's touched in the head?" said Harry heatedly.**

"**No, I just think he's been very lonely for a long time," said Hermione simply.**

**At this point, Mrs. Weasley entered the bedroom behind them.**

"**Still not finished?" she said, poking her head into the cupboard.**

"**I thought you might be here to tell us to have a break" said Ron bitterly. "D'you know how much mould we've got rid of since we arrived here?"**

"**You were so keen to help the Order," said Mrs. Weasley, "you can do your bit by making Headquarters fit to live in."**

"You know that I didn't mean it like this"

"**I feel like a house-elf," grumbled Ron.**

"**Well, now you understand what dreadful lives they lead, perhaps you'll be a bit more active in SPEW!" said Hermione hopefully, as Mrs. Weasley left them to it. "You know, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to show people exactly how horrible it is to clean all the time - we could do a sponsored scrub of Gryffindor common room, all proceeds to SPEW, it would raise awareness as well as funds."**

Harry and Ron acted as though Hermione wasn't in the room. They didn't want to hurt her feelings but they defiantly didn't want to clean the whole Griffindor tower as well.

"**I'll sponsor you to shut up about SPEW," Ron muttered irritably, but only so Harry could hear him.**

Hermione scowled.

**Harry found himself daydreaming about Hogwarts more and more as the end of the holidays approached; he could not wait to see Hagrid again, to play Quidditch, even to stroll across the vegetable patches to the Herbology greenhouses; **

All of the adults (except the teachers) got a dreamy look in their eyes. Oh how they'd love to go back to Hogwarts.

**it would be a treat just to leave this dusty, musty house, where half of the cupboards were still bolted shut and Kreacher wheezed insults out of the shadows as you passed, though Harry was careful not to say any of this within earshot of Sirius.**

**The fact was that living at the Headquarters of the anti-Voldemort movement was not nearly as interesting or exciting as Harry would have expected before he'd experienced it. **

**Though members of the Order of the Phoenix came and went regularly, sometimes staying for meals, sometimes only for a few minutes of whispered conversation, Mrs. Weasley made sure that Harry and the others were kept well out of earshot (whether Extendable or normal) and nobody, not even Sirius, seemed to feel that Harry needed to know anything more than he had heard on the night of his arrival.**

**On the very last day of the holidays Harry was sweeping up Hedwigs owl droppings from the top of the wardrobe when Ron entered their bedroom carrying a couple of envelopes.**

"**Booklists have arrived," he said, throwing one of the envelopes up to Harry, who was standing on a chair. "About time, I thought they'd forgotten, they usually come much earlier than this…"**

Mrs. Weasley looked a bit nervous. The prefect badges would be send, too.

**Harry swept the last of the droppings into a rubbish bag and threw the bag over Ron's head into the wastepaper basket in the corner, which swallowed it and belched loudly. He then opened his letter. It contained two pieces of parchment: one the usual reminder that term started on the first of September; the other telling him which books he would need for the coming year.**

Everyone looked confused. They had assumed Harry would get the badge.

"**Only two new ones," he said, reading the list, "The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5, by Miranda Goshawk, and Defensive Magical Theory, by Wilbert Slinkhard."**

**Crack.**

**Fred and George Apparated right beside Harry. He was so used to them doing this by now that he didn't even fall off his chair.**

"**We were just wondering who assigned the Slinkhard book," said Fred conversationally.**

"**Because it means Dumbledore's found a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," said George.**

"**And about time too," said Fred.**

"**What d'you mean?" Harry asked, jumping down beside them.**

"**Well, we overheard Mum and Dad talking on the Extendable Ears a few weeks back," Fred told Harry, "and from what they were saying, Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job this year."**

"Hope it's no Lockhaert", Harry muttered, unaware of that he'd soon be wishing to have Lockhart again.

"Oh come on. He became better under my care", Ron chuckled.

"**Not surprising, is it, when you look at what's happened to the last four?" said George.**

"**One sacked, one dead, one's memory removed and one locked in a trunk for nine months," said Harry, counting them off on his fingers. "Yeah, I see what you mean."**

"**What's up with you, Ron?" asked Fred.**

**Ron did not answer. Harry looked round. Ron was standing very still with his mouth slightly open, gaping at his letter from Hogwarts.**

"I think I know who the perfect is", Tonks smiled brightly.

"**What's the matter?" said Fred impatiently, moving around Ron to look over his shoulder at the parchment.**

**Fred's mouth fell open, too.**

**"Prefect?" he said, staring incredulously at the letter. "Prefect?"**

Mrs and Mr. Weasley looked proud, the Wealsey kids rather shocked, Hermione too but she tried to hide it, the other Order Members smiled and Harry...well Harry felt strange.

**George leapt forwards, seized the envelope in Ron's other hand and turned it upside-down. Harry saw something scarlet and gold fall into George's palm.**

"**No way," said George in a hushed voice.**

"**There's been a mistake," said Fred, snatching the letter out of Ron's grasp and holding it up to the light as though checking for a watermark. "No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect."**

**The twins' heads turned in unison and both of them stared at Harry.**

"**We thought you were a cert!" said Fred, in a tone that suggested Harry had tricked them in some way.**

"**We thought Dumbledore was bound to pick you!" said George indignantly.**

"**Winning the Triwizard and everything!" said Fred.**

"Fred!", Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, "you should be proud. And don't make Harry f eel bad about not being prefect!"

"**I suppose all the mad stuff must've counted against him," said George to Fred.**

"**Yeah," said Fred slowly. "Yeah, you've caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you's got their priorities right."**

**He strode over to Harry and clapped him on the back while giving Ron a scathing look.**

**"Prefect… ickle Ronnie the Prefect."**

"**Oh, Mum's going to be revolting," groaned George, thrusting the prefect badge back at Ron as though it might contaminate him.**

**Ron, who still had not said a word, took the badge, stared at it for a moment, then held it out to Harry as though asking mutely for confirmation that it was genuine. Harry took it. A large P was superimposed on the Gryffindor lion. He had seen a badge just like this on Percy's chest on his very first day at Hogwarts.**

**The door banged open. Hermione came tearing into the room, her cheeks flushed and her hair flying. There was an envelope in her hand.**

This time no one was surprised. Hermione looked very pleased with herself.

"**Did you - did you get -?"**

**She spotted the badge in Harry's hand and let out a shriek.**

"**I knew it!' she said excitedly, brandishing her letter. "Me too, Harry, me too!"**

"**No," said Harry quickly, pushing the badge back into Ron's hand. "It's Ron, not me."**

"**It - what?"**

"**Ron's prefect, not me," Harry said.**

"**Ron?" said Hermione, her jaw dropping. "But… are you sure? I mean -"**

Everyone flinched at that. This wasn't good. Ron would feel left out again and Harry would probably feel as if he wasn't good enough.

**She turned red as Ron looked round at her with a defiant expression on his face.**

"**It's my name on the letter," he said.**

"**I…" said Hermione, looking thoroughly bewildered. "I… well… wow! Well done, Ron! That's really -"**

"**Unexpected," said George, nodding.**

"**No," said Hermione, blushing harder than ever, "no it's not… Ron's done loads of… he's really…"**

**The door behind her opened a little wider and Mrs. Weasley backed into the room carrying a pile of freshly laundered robes.**

"**Ginny said the booklists had come at last," she said, glancing around at all the envelopes as she made her way over to the bed and started sorting the robes into two piles. "If you give them to me I'll take them over to Diagon Alley this afternoon and get your books while you're packing. Ron, I'll have to get you more pajamas, these are at least six inches too short, I can't believe how fast you're growing… what color would you like?"**

"**Get him red and gold to match his badge," said George, smirking.**

"**Match his what?" said Mrs. Weasley absently, rolling up a pair of maroon socks and placing them on Ron's pile.**

"**His badge," said Fred, with the air of getting the worst over quickly. "His lovely shiny new prefect's badge."**

**Fred's words took a moment to penetrate Mrs. Weasley's preoccupation with pajamas.**

"**His… but… Ron, you're not…?"**

Mrs. Weasley blushed. She believed in her son, she really did but she was just certain that Harry would get the badge.

**Ron held up his badge.**

**Mrs. Weasley let out a shriek just like Hermione's.**

**"I don't believe it! I don't believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That's everyone in the family!"**

"And what's about us?", the twins exclaimed, mock hurt.

"**What are Fred and I, next-door neighbors?" said George indignantly, as his mother pushed him aside and flung her arms around her youngest son.**

**"Wait until your father hears! Ron, I'm so proud of you, what wonderful news, you could end up Head Boy just like Bill and Percy, it's the first step! Oh, what a thing to happen in the middle of all this worry, I'm just thrilled, oh, Ronnie —"**

**Fred and George were both making loud retching noises behind her back but Mrs. Weasley did not notice; arms tight around Ron's neck, she was kissing him all over his face, which had turned a brighter scarlet than his badge.**

Ron's ears went red. HE hated it when his mother did that.

"**Mum… don't… Mum, get a grip…" he muttered, trying to push her away.**

**She let go of him and said breathlessly, "Well, what will it be? We gave Percy an owl, but you've already got one, of course."**

"**W-what do you mean?" said Ron, looking as though he did not dare believe his ears.**

"**You've got to have a reward for this!" said Mrs. Weasley fondly. "How about a nice new set of dress robes?"**

"**We've already bought him some," said Fred sourly, who looked as though he sincerely regretted this generosity.**

"A broom", Ron smiled.

"**Or a new cauldron, Charlies old one's rusting through, or a new rat, you always liked ****Scabbers"**

Everyone flinched at the mention of that...well that rat.

"**Mum," said Ron hopefully, "can I have a new broom?"**

**Mrs. Weasley's face fell slightly; broomsticks were expensive.**

"**Not a really good one!" Ron hastened to add. "Just - just a new one for a change…"**

**Mrs. Weasley hesitated, then smiled.**

"**Of course you can… well, I'd better get going if I've got a broom to buy too. I'll see you all later… little Ronnie, a prefect! And don't forget to pack your trunks… a prefect… oh, I'm all of a dither!"**

"Hah," Ron smiled, " I get a new broom"

The twins didn't respond to that.

**She gave Ron yet another kiss on the cheek, sniffed loudly, and bustled from the room.**

**Fred and George exchanged looks.**

"**You don't mind if we don't kiss you, do you, Ron?" said Fred in a falsely anxious voice.**

"**We could curtsey, if you like," said George.**

"**Oh, shut up," said Ron, scowling at them.**

"**Or what?" said Fred, an evil grin spreading across his face. "Going to put us in detention?"**

"**I'd love to see him try," sniggered George.**

"**He could if you don't watch out!" said Hermione angrily.**

**Fred and George burst out laughing, and Ron muttered, "Drop it, Hermione."**

Fred and George laughed, but their thoughts where a different story. They knew that Hermione being a prefect wasn't good for their jokeshoop business.

"**We're going to have to watch our step, George," said Fred, pretending to tremble, "with these two on our case…"**

"**Yeah, it looks like our law-breaking days are finally over," said George, shaking his head.**

**And with another loud crack, the twins Disapparated.**

"**Those two!" said Hermione furiously, staring up at the ceiling, through which they could now hear Fred and George roaring with laughter in the room upstairs. **

"**Don't pay any attention to them, Ron, they're only jealous!"**

"Nope", they both said in unison, popping the "p".

"**I don't think they are," said Ron doubtfully, also looking up at the ceiling. "They've always said only prats become prefects… still," he added on a happier note, "they've never had new brooms! I wish I could go with Mum and choose… she'll never be able to afford a Nimbus, but there's the new Cleansweep out, that'd be great… yeah, I think I'll go and tell her I like the Cleansweep, just so she knows."**

**He dashed from the room, leaving Harry and Hermione alone.**

**For some reason, Harry found he did not want to look at Hermione. He turned to his bed, picked up the pile of clean robes Mrs. Weasley had laid on it and crossed the room to his trunk.**

Harry turned red. He didn't know if he liked to hear what was coming next.

"**Harry?" said Hermione tentatively.**

"**Well done, Hermione," said Harry, so heartily it did not sound like his voice at all, and, still not looking at her, "brilliant. Prefect. Great."**

"Awe...ickle Harry-kins is jealous"

"**Thanks," said Hermione. "Erm - Harry - could I borrow Hedwig so I can tell Mum and Dad? They'll be really pleased - I mean prefect is something they can understand."**

"**Yeah, no problem," said Harry, still in the horrible hearty voice that did not belong to him. "Take her!"**

Harry shifted uncomfortable in his seet while Ron looked at him astonished. _Was Harry jealous? _He thought.

**He leaned over his trunk, laid the robes on the bottom of it and pretended to be rummaging for something while Hermione crossed to the wardrobe and called Hedwig down. A few moments passed; Harry heard the door close but remained bent double, listening; the only sounds he could hear were the blank picture on the wall sniggering again and the wastepaper basket in the corner coughing up the owl droppings.**

**He straightened up and looked behind him. Hermione had left and Hedwig had gone. Harry hurried across the room, closed the door, then returned slowly to his bed and sank on to it, gazing unseeingly at the foot of the wardrobe.**

**He had forgotten completely about prefects being chosen in the fifth year. He had been too anxious about the possibility of being expelled to spare a thought for the fact that badges must be winging their way towards certain people. But if he had remembered… if he had thought about it… what would he have expected?**

**Not this, said a small and truthful voice inside his head.**

Ron continue looking astonished while Snape's lips curved into a smile. _Potter that brat. Not able to be out of the spotlight for second._

**Harry screwed up his face and buried it in his hands. He could not lie to himself; if he had known the prefect badge was on its way, he would have expected it to come to him, not Ron. Did this make him as arrogant as Draco Malfoy? Did he think himself superior to everyone else? Did he really believe he was better than Ron?**

**No, said the small voice defiantly.**

**Was that true? Harry wondered, anxiously probing his own feelings.**

**I'm better at Quidditch, said the voice. But I'm not better at anything else.**

Everyone looked at Harry who seemed very interested in his hands.

**That was definitely true, Harry thought; he was no better than Ron in lessons. **

**But what about outside lessons? What about those adventures he, Ron and Hermione had had together since starting at Hogwarts, often risking much worse than expulsion?**

**Well, Ron and Hermione were with me most of the time, said the voice in Harry's head.**

**Not all the time, though, Harry argued with himself. They didn't fight Quirrell with me. They didn't take on Riddle and the Basilisk. They didn't get rid of all those Dementors the night Sirius escaped. They weren't in that graveyard with me, the night Voldemort returned…**

"Harry, all those things you did where very brave but they don't have anything to do with being a prefect"

This made harry feel slightly better.

**And the same feeling of ill-usage that had overwhelmed him on the night he had arrived rose again. I've definitely done more, Harry thought indignantly. I've done more than either of them!**

**But maybe, said the small voice fairly, maybe Dumbledore doesn't choose prefects because they've got themselves into a load of dangerous situations… maybe he chooses them for other reasons… Ron must have something you don't…**

Now Ron looked really dumbstruck. Harry was the one who was better than him at everything. What could he possibly have other than a big amount of siblings.

**Harry opened his eyes and stared through his fingers at the wardrobe's clawed feet, remembering what Fred had said: "No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect…"**

**Harry gave a small snort of laughter. A second later he felt sickened with himself.**

**Ron had not asked Dumbledore to give him the prefect badge. This was not Ron's fault. Was he, Harry, Ron's best friend in the world, going to sulk because he didn't have a badge, laugh with the twins behind Ron's back, ruin this for Ron when, for the first time, he had beaten Harry at something?**

**At this point Harry heard Ron's footsteps on the stairs again. He stood up, straightened his glasses, and hitched a grin on to his face as Ron bounded back through the door.**

"**Just caught her!" he said happily. "She says she'll get the Cleansweep if she can."**

"**Cool," Harry said, and he was relieved to hear that his voice had stopped sounding hearty.**

"**Listen - Ron - well done, mate."**

**The smile faded off Ron's face.**

"**I never thought it would be me!" he said, shaking his head. "I thought it would be you!"**

"**Nah, I've caused too much trouble," Harry said, echoing Fred.**

Hermione looked at Harry with a small smile. She was relieved that Harry caught himself before he ruined this for Ron.

**"Yeah," said Ron, "yeah, I suppose… well, we'd better get our trunks packed, hadn't we?"**

**It was odd how widely their possessions seemed to have scattered themselves since they had arrived. It took them most of the afternoon to retrieve their books and belongings from all over the house and stow them back inside their school trunks. Harry noticed that Ron kept moving his prefects badge around, first placing it on his bedside table, then putting it into his jeans pocket, then taking it out and lying it on his folded robes, as though to see the effect of the red on the black. **

Ron blushed at this.

**Only when Fred and George dropped in and offered to attach it to his forehead with a Permanent Sticking Charm did he wrap it tenderly in his maroon socks and lock it in his trunk.**

**Mrs. Weasley returned from Diagon Alley around six o'clock, laden with books and carrying a long package wrapped in thick brown paper that Ron took from her with a moan of longing.**

"**Never mind unwrapping it now, people are arriving for dinner, I want you all downstairs," she said, but the moment she was out of sight Ron ripped off the paper in a frenzy and examined every inch of his new broom, an ecstatic expression on his face.**

**Down in the basement Mrs. Weasley had hung a scarlet banner over the heavily laden dinner table, which read:**

**CONGRATULATIONS RON AND HERMIONE NEW PREFECTS**

**She looked in a better mood than Harry had seen her all holiday.**

"**I thought we'd have a little party, not a sit-down dinner," she told Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny as they entered the room. "Your father and Bill are on their way, Ron. I've sent them both owls and they're thrilled," she added, beaming. Fred rolled his eyes.**

**Sirius, Lupin, Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt were already there and Mad-Eye Moody stumped in shortly after Harry had got himself a Butterbeer.**

"**Oh, Alastor, I am glad you're here," said Mrs. Weasley brightly, as Mad-Eye shrugged off his traveling cloak. "We've been wanting to ask you for ages - could you have a look in the writing desk in the drawing room and tell us what's inside it? We haven't wanted to open it just in case it's something really nasty."**

"**No problem, Molly…"**

**Moody's electric-blue eye swiveled upwards and stared fixedly through the ceiling of the kitchen.**

**"Drawing room…" he growled, as the pupil contracted. "Desk in the corner? Yeah, I see it… yeah, it's a Boggart… want me to go up and get rid of it, Molly?"**

"**No, no, I'll do it myself later," beamed Mrs. Weasley, "you have your drink. We're having a little bit of a celebration, actually…" She gesture d at the scarlet banner. "Fourth prefect in the family!" she said fondly, ruffling Ron's hair.**

"**Prefect, eh?" growled Moody, his normal eye on Ron and his magical eye swiveling around to gaze into the side of his head. Harry had the very uncomfortable feeling it was looking at him and moved away towards Sirius and Lupin.**

"**Well, congratulations," said Moody, still glaring at Ron with his normal eye, "authority figures always attract trouble, but I suppose Dumbledore thinks you can withstand most major jinxes or he wouldn't have appointed you…"**

Everyone cracked up at that. The twins where rolling on the floor and even the stern Professor McGonnagall laughed at that. Only Moody and Snape didn't laugh. Snape for the obvious and Moody because he didn't understand what they where laughing about.

**Ron looked rather startled at this view of the matter but was saved the trouble of responding by the arrival of his father and eldest brother. Mrs. Weasley was in such a good mood she did not even complain that they had brought Mundungus with them; he was wearing a long overcoat that seemed oddly lumpy in unlikely places and declined the offer to remove it and put it with Moody's traveling cloak.**

"**Well, I think a toast is in order," said Mr. Weasley, when everyone had a drink. He raised his goblet. "To Ron and Hermione, the new Gryffindor prefects!"**

**Ron and Hermione beamed as everyone drank to them, and then applauded.**

"**I was never a prefect myself," said Tonks brightly from behind Harry as everybody moved towards the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato red and waist-length today; she looked like Ginny's older sister. "My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities."**

"**Like what?" said Ginny, who was choosing a baked potato.**

"**Like the ability to behave myself," said Tonks.**

**Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of Butterbeer and choking on it.**

Said girl blushed.

"**What about you, Sirius?" Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back.**

**Sirius, who was right beside Harry, let out his usual bark-like laugh.**

"**No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge."**

"**I think Dumbledore might have hoped I would be able to exercise some control over my best friends," said Lupin. "I need scarcely say that I failed dismally."**

"Indeed, needless to say", McGonagall said but her mouth twitched into a small smile.

**Harry's mood suddenly lifted. His father had not been a prefect either. All at once the party seemed much more enjoyable; he loaded up his plate, feeling doubly fond of everyone in the room.**

**Ron was rhapsodizing about his new broom to anybody who would listen.**

**"… nought to seventy in ten seconds, not bad, is it? When you think the Comet Two Ninety's only nought to sixty and that's with a decent tailwind according to Which Broomstick?"**

**Hermione was talking very earnestly to Lupin about her view of elf rights.**

"**I mean, it's the same kind of nonsense as werewolf segregation, isn't it? It all stems from this horrible thing wizards have of thinking they're superior to other creatures…"**

**Mrs. Weasley and Bill were having their usual argument about Bill's hair.**

Bill looked annoyed and so did Mrs. Weasley for the matter of fact.

"… **getting really out of hand, and you're so good-looking, it would look much better shorter, wouldn't it, Harry?"**

"**Oh - I dunno -" said Harry, slightly alarmed at being asked his opinion; he slid away from them in the direction of Fred and George, who were huddled in a corner with Mundungus.**

**Mundungus stopped talking when he saw Harry, but Fred winked and beckoned Harry closer.**

"**It's okay," he told Mundungus, "we can trust Harry, he's our financial backer."**

"**Look what Dung's got us," said George, holding out his hand to Harry. It was full of what looked like shriveled black pods. A faint rattling noise was coming from them, even though they were completely stationary.**

**"Venomous Tentacula seeds," said George. "We need them for the Skiving Snackboxes but they're a Class C Non-Tradable Substance so we've been having a bit of trouble getting hold of them."**

"**Ten Galleons the lot, then Dung?" said Fred.**

"**Wiv all the trouble I went to to get 'em?" said Mundungus, his saggy, bloodshot eyes stretching even wider. "I'm sorry, lads, but I'm not taking a Knut under twenty."**

"**Dung likes his little joke," Fred said to Harry.**

"**Yeah, his best one so far has been six Sickles for a bag of Knarl quills," said George.**

"**Be careful," Harry warned them quietly.**

"**What?" said Fred. "Mum's busy cooing over Prefect Ron, we're okay."**

"**But Moody could have his eye on you," Harry pointed out.**

**Mundungus looked nervously over his shoulder.**

"**Good point, that," he grunted. "All right, lads, ten it is, if you'll take 'em quick."**

"Thanks Harry," , Fred and George said while Harry was avoiding Mrs. Weasleys glare.

"**Cheers, Harry!" said Fred delightedly, when Mundungus had emptied his pockets into the twins' outstretched hands and scuttled off towards the food. "We'd better get these upstairs…"**

**Harry watched them go, feeling slightly uneasy. It had just occurred to him that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would want to know how Fred and George were financing their joke shop business when, as was inevitable, they finally found out about it. Giving the twins his Triwizard winnings had seemed a simple thing to do at the time, but what if it led to another family row and a Percylike estrangement? Would Mrs. Weasley still feel that Harry was as good as her son if she found out he had made it possible for Fred and George to start a career she thought quite unsuitable?**

"What?", Mrs. Weasley shouted.

Tonks was very curios herself but didn't want a fight to start so she continued reading.

**Standing where the twins had left him, with nothing but a guilty weight in the pit of his stomach for company, Harry caught the sound of his own name. Kingsley Shacklebolt's deep voice was audible even over the surrounding chatter.**

"… **why Dumbledore didn't make Potter a prefect?" said Kingsley.**

"**He'll have had his reasons," replied Lupin.**

"**But it would've shown confidence in him. It's what I'd've done," persisted Kingsley, "specially with the Daily Prophet having a go at him every few days…"**

**Harry did not look round; he did not want Lupin or Kingsley to know he had heard. Though not remotely hungry, he followed Mundungus back towards the table. His pleasure in the party had evaporated as quickly as it had come; he wished he were upstairs in bed.**

**Mad-Eye Moody was sniffing at a chicken-leg with what remained of his nose; evidently he could not detect any trace of poison, because he then tore a strip off it with his teeth.**

"… **the handles made of Spanish oak with anti-jinx varnish and in-built vibration control -" Ron was saying to Tonks.**

**Mrs. Weasley yawned widely.**

"**Well, I think I'll sort out that Boggart before I turn in… Arthur, I don't want this lot up too late, all right? Night, Harry, dear."**

**She left the kitchen. Harry set down his plate and wondered whether he could follow her without attracting attention.**

"**You all right, Potter?" grunted Moody.**

**"Yeah, fine," lied Harry.**

**Moody took a swig from his hipflask, his electric-blue eye staring sideways at Harry.**

"**Come here, I've got something that might interest you," he said.**

Everyone looked interested at that.

**From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old wizarding photograph.**

"**Original Order of the Phoenix," growled Moody. **

"Cool," the twins chorused.

Mrs. Weasley looked at Harry concerned, she didn't know if he would like that.

**"Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn't had the manners to return my best one… thought people might like to see it."**

**Harry took the photograph. A small crowd of people, some waving at him, others lifting their glasses, looked back up at him.**

"**There's me," said Moody, unnecessarily pointing at himself. The Moody in the picture was unmistakable, though his hair was slightly less gray and his nose was intact. "And there's Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side… that's Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. **

Everyone looked very solemn at that. The people who where in the Order last time remembered the day of the news as if it happened yesterday. It was one of Voldemort's hardest strikes against the order. Not to mention that they all lost a friend that day.

**That's Frank and Alice Longbottom -"**

**Harry's stomach, already uncomfortable, clenched as he looked at Alice Longbottom; he knew her round, friendly face very well, even though he had never met her, because she was the image of her son, Neville.**

**"— poor devils," growled Moody. "Better dead than what happened to them… and that's Emmeline Vance, you've met her, and that there's Lupin, obviously… Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him… shift aside there," he added, poking the picture, and the little photographic people edged sideways, so that those who were partially obscured could move to the front.**

"**That's Edgar Bones… brother of Amelia Bones, they got him and his family, too, he was a great wizard… Sturgis Podmore, blimey, he looks young… Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body… Hagrid, of course, looks exactly the same as ever… Elphias Doge, you've met him, I'd forgotten he used to wear that stupid hat… Gideon Prewett, it took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother Fabian, they fought like heroes… budge along, budge along…"**

Mrs. Weasley silently cried into her handkerchief at the mention of her brothers.

**The little people in the photograph jostled among themselves and those hidden right at the back appeared at the forefront of the picture.**

"**That's Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke… that's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally… Sirius, when he still had short hair… and… there you go, thought that would interest you!"**

**Harry's heart turned over. His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man whom Harry recognized at once as Wormtail, the one who had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort and so helped to bring about their deaths.**

Sirius and Lupin became very white, while Harry felt a stab of grief inside his chest as though he couldn't breathe.

"**Eh?" said Moody.**

**Harry looked up into Moody's heavily scarred and pitted face. Evidently Moody was under the impression he had just given Harry a bit of a treat.**

"**Yeah," said Harry, once again attempting to grin. "Er… listen, I've just remembered, I haven't packed my…"**

**He was spared the trouble of inventing an object he had not packed. Sirius had just said, "What's that you've got there, Mad-Eye?" and Moody had turned towards him. **

**Harry crossed the kitchen, slipped through the door and up the stairs before anyone could call him back.**

**He did not know why it had been such a shock; he had seen pictures of his parents before, after all, and he had met Wormtail but to have them sprung on him like that, when he was least expecting it… no one would like that, he thought angrily…**

**And then, to see them surrounded by all those other happy faces… Benjy Fenwick, who had been found in bits, and Gideon Prewett, who had died like a hero, and the Longbottoms, who had been tortured into madness… all waving happily out of the photograph forever more, not knowing that they were doomed… well, Moody might find that interesting… he, Harry, found it disturbing…**

**Harry tiptoed up the stairs in the hall past the stuffed elf-heads, glad to be on his own again, but as he approached the first landing he heard noises. Someone was sobbing in the drawing room.**

"**Hello?" Harry said.**

**There was no answer but the sobbing continued. He climbed the remaining stairs two at a time, walked across the landing and opened the drawing-room door.**

**Someone was cowering against the dark wall, her wand in her hand, her whole body shaking with sobs. Sprawled on the dusty old carpet in a patch of moonlight, clearly dead, was Ron.**

"NO", everyone shouted, not quiet believing what they read.

**All the air seemed to vanish from Harry's lungs; he felt as though he were falling through the floor; his brain turned icy cold - Ron dead, no, it couldn't be-**

**But wait a moment, it couldn't be - Ron was downstairs -**

Everyone relaxed at that. Of course Ron was downstairs.

"**Mrs. Weasley?" Harry croaked.**

**"R - r - riddikulus!" Mrs. Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron's body.**

**Crack.**

**Ron's body turned into Bill's, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty. Mrs. Weasley sobbed harder than ever.**

"**R -riddikulus!" she sobbed again.**

**Crack.**

**Mr. Weasley's body replaced Bill's, his glasses askew, a trickle of blood running down his face.**

"**No!" Mrs. Weasley moaned. "No… riddikulus! Riddikulus! RIDDlKULUS"**

**Crack. Dead twins. Crack. Dead Percy. Crack. Dead Harry…**

."

"**Mrs. Weasley, just get out of here!" shouted Harry, staring down at his own dead body on the floor. "Let someone else -"**

"**What's going on?"**

**Lupin had come running into the room, closely followed by Sirius, with Moody stumping along behind them. Lupin looked from Mrs. Weasley to the dead Harry on the floor and seemed to understand in an instant. Pulling out his own wand, he said, very firmly and clearly:**

"**Riddikulus!"**

**Harry's body vanished. A silvery orb hung in the air over the spot where it had lain. Lupin waved his wand once more and the orb vanished in a puff of smoke.**

"Thank you", Mrs.- Weasley said quietly.

"**Oh - oh - oh!" gulped Mrs. Weasley, and she broke into a storm of crying, her face in her hands.**

"**Molly," said Lupin bleakly, walking over to her. "Molly don't…"**

**Next second, she was sobbing her heart out on Lupin's shoulder.**

"**Molly, it was just a Boggart," he said soothingly, patting her on the head, "just a stupid Boggart…"**

"**I see them d-d - dead all the time!" Mrs. Weasley moaned into his shoulder. "All the't -'t - time! I d - d - dream about it…"**

**Sirius was staring at the patch of carpet where the Boggart, pretending to be Harry's body, had lain. **

Sirius face was very white. He didn't want to think of the possibility that his godson could die...

**Moody was looking at Harry, who avoided his gaze. He had a funny feeling Moody's magical eye had followed him all the way out of the kitchen.**

"**D-d - don't tell Arthur," Mrs. Weasley was gulping now, mopping her eyes frantically with her cuffs. "I d - d - don't want him to know… being silly…"**

**Lupin handed her a handkerchief and she blew her nose.**

"**Harry, I'm so sorry. What must you think of me?" she said shakily. "Not even able to get rid of a Boggart…"**

"of course I don't think that."

"**Don't be stupid," said Harry, trying to smile.**

"**I'm just's -'s - so worried," she said, tears spilling out of her eyes again. "Half the f - f - family's in the Order, it'll b - b - be a miracle if we all come through this… **

Everyone tried to shove the thought of someone in the order dying out of his head.

**and P - P - Percy's not talking to us… what if something d-d - dreadful happens and we've never m - m - made it up with him? And what's going to happen if Arthur and I get killed, who's g - g - going to look after Ron and Ginny?"**

"**Molly that's enough" said Lupin firmly. "This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemorts up to -"**

**Mrs. Weasley gave a little squeak of fright at the sound of the name.**

"**Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing his name - look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time. You weren't in the Order then, you don't understand. Last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one…"**

**Harry thought of the photograph again, of his parents' beaming faces. He knew Moody was still watching him.**

"**Don't worry about Percy" said Sirius abruptly. "He'll come round. It's only a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology," he added bitterly.**

"**And as for who's going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," said Lupin, ****smiling slightly, "what do you think we'd do, let them starve?"**

**Mrs. Weasley smiled tremulously.**

"**Being silly," she muttered again, mopping her eyes.**

**But Harry, closing his bedroom door behind him some ten minutes later, could not think Mrs. Weasley silly. He could still see his parents beaming up at him from the tattered old photograph, unaware that their lives, like so many of those around them, were drawing to a close. The image of the Boggart posing as the corpse of each member of Mrs. Weasley's family in turn kept flashing before his eyes.**

**Without warning, the scar on his forehead seared with pain again and his stomach churned horribly.**

"**Cut it out," he said firmly, rubbing the scar as the pain receded.**

"**First sign of madness, talking to your own head," said a sly voice from the empty picture on the wall.**

**Harry ignored it. He felt older than he had ever felt in his life and it seemed extraordinary to him that barely an hour ago he had been worried about a joke shop and who had got a prefects badge.**

Everyone sat there silent for a few minutes. Lost in their own thoughts.

"Well I think I'll prepare dinner", Mrs. Weasley said.

_**Another chapter! I'm sorry if there are some passages when I didn't write about the actions of the people reading this. My mind isn't the sharpest today (probably because I had a sleepover with my friends and I'm still tired) and nothing really came to my mind.**_

_**Please review, constructive criticism is always welcome. Also, If you see major grammar/spelling mistakes that I keep doing you can always PM me.**_


	5. Luna Lovegood

_**So, here is another chapter. I thought I'd get another finished because school will start again on Monday here in Germany. (yaaaaaaaay... -.-*)**_

_**And a **_**BIG****_ thank you to all who put my story in their story alert list or to their favorites! (this sounds wrong...well, I'm sorry, my English still has to improve)_**

_**So...the amazing Harry Potter universe doesn't belong to me...**_

After a quite chaotic dinner ( they were a lot of people and even if the house was large dinner was a mess) they all sat down to read another few chapters.

Just as Sirius opened his mouth to read the title of the chapter, (he had insisted to be the one to read, threatig everyone who acme near the book) there was a flash of light, and Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom and a note appeared. Everyone was shocked at first but the people who knew her from school relaxed immediate, and everyone else did too, after Kingsleys deep calm voice read the note (well, everyone except Moony):

_**Hi everyone. We hope everything is going to go well. While you are reading this at some times there are people going to appear because they've got something to do with the story.**_

_**Have a great reading time,**_

_**yours sincerely everyone.**_

"Wait", Neville suddently said, "are you Sirius Black?" He looked at Sirius, shocked.

"Ah..he is Mr. Longbottom, but I can assure you, that he's no harm.", Dumbledore said.

"Oh yes. my Dad is planning to write an article about him. He is innocent, after all", Luna commented.._**  
><strong>_

"Well", she then said, " why don't we start reading?"

Sirius looked remarkable like Dudley for a moment but finally started reading.

**Luna Lovegood**

"Ahh...you appear in the chapter. That's why you're here", Ron stated the obvious.

**Harry had a troubled nights sleep. His parents wove in and out of his dreams, never speaking; Mrs. Weasley sobbed over Kreacher's dead body**

Sirius looked as if Harry just confessed he would marry the giant squid.

**, watched by Ron and Hermione who were wearing crowns, and yet again Harry found himself walking down a corridor ending in a locked door.**

Professor Dumbledore and Snape exchanged glances. Dumbledore looked worried and Snape kept a perfect Pokerface.

The children just looked a little confused because they where wondering why a dream seemed so important to be mentioned.

**He awoke abruptly with his scar prickling to find Ron already dressed and talking to him.**

"… **better hurry up, Mum's going ballistic, she says we're going to miss the train."**

**There was a lot of commotion in the house. From what he heard as he dressed at top speed, Harry gathered that Fred and George had bewitched their trunks to fly downstairs to save the bother of carrying them, with the result that they had hurtled straight into Ginny and knocked her down two flights of stairs into the hall; Mrs. Black and Mrs. Weasley were both screaming at the top of their voices.**

The present Mrs. Weasley looked ballistic, too.

"Woah Mum, we didn't do it yet!", the twins exclaimed.

"Besides", Luna commented, "it could have been worse. At least there where no Babblingers present. That would have been fatal."

Just as Sirius opened his mouth to ask what a Babblinger was, Ginny shook her head behind Luna's head and motioned him to continue reading.

"**- COULD HAVE DONE HER A SERIOUS INJURY, YOU IDIOTS -"**

"**- FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BESMIRCHING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS -"**

Sirius did a very good job imitating the women. Everyone covered their ears with tar hands while Sirius looked like he was having the time of his life...shouting.

**Hermione came hurrying into the room looking flustered, just as Harry was putting on his trainers. Hedwig was swaying on her shoulder, and she was carrying a squirming Crookshanks in her arms.**

**"Mum and Dad just sent Hedwig back." The owl fluttered obligingly over and perched on top of her cage. "Are you ready yet?"**

"**Nearly. Is Ginny all right?" Harry asked, shoving on his glasses.**

"Uhhhh...",the twins choursed.

"I bet you five galleons that he will start liking her back someday", George whispered in Reds ear.

"You're on", Fred whispered back.

"**Mrs. Weasley's patched her up," said Hermione. "But now Mad-Eye's complaining that we can't leave unless Sturgis Podmore's here, otherwise the guard will be one short.'**

"**Guard?" said Harry. "We have to go to King's Cross with a guard?"**

"**You have to go to King's Cross with a guard," Hermione corrected him.**

Harry groaned. This would certainty be annoying.

"**Why?" said Harry irritably. "I thought Voldemort was supposed to be lying low, or are you telling me he's going to jump out from behind a dustbin to try and do me in?"**

"No need to snap at me harry, everyone's just trying to protect you!", Hermione scolded him

Harry shot her a sheepish look.

"**I don't know, it's just what Mad-Eye says," said Hermione distractedly, looking at her watch, "but if we don't leave soon we're definitely going to miss the train…"**

"**WILL YOU LOT GET DOWN HERE NOW, PLEASE!" Mrs. Weasley bellowed and Hermione jumped as though scalded and hurried out of the room. Harry seized Hedwig, stuffed her unceremoniously into her cage, and set off downstairs after Hermione, dragging his trunk.**

**Mrs. Black's portrait was howling with rage but nobody was bothering to close the curtains over her; all the noise in the hall was bound to rouse her again, anyway.**

"**Harry, you're to come with me and Tonks," shouted Mrs. Weasley - over the repeated screeches of "MUDBLOODS! SCUM! CREATURES OF DIRT!" - "Leave your trunk and your owl, Alastor's going to deal with the luggage… oh, for heaven's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore said no!"**

"Well I think we all know, that Black never really listened to Dumbledore. Or Anyone else for the matter of fact."

Snape's dark, cold eyes looked at Sirius with such a big amount of hatred that it was a miracle Sirius didn't die right on the spot.

A lot of people shot him dirty looks but to everyone's surprise Sirius didn't say anything and just continued reading-

**A bear-like black dog had appeared at Harry's side as he was clambering over the various trunks cluttering the hall to get to Mrs. Weasley.**

Harry looked torn in between happiness and worries.

"**Oh honestly…" said Mrs. Weasley despairingly. "Well, on your own head be it!'**

**She wrenched open the front door and stepped out into the weak September sunlight. Harry and the dog followed her. The door slammed behind them and Mrs. Black's screeches were cut off instantly.**

"**Where's Tonks?" Harry said, looking round as they went down the stone steps of number twelve, which vanished the moment they reached the pavement.**

"**She's waiting for us just up here," said Mrs. Weasley stiffly, averting her eyes from the lolloping black dog beside Harry.**

**An old woman greeted them on the corner. She had tightly curled grey hair and wore a purple hat shaped like a pork pie.**

The twins wolf whistled and Tonks looked very pleased with herself.

"**Wotcher, Harry," she said, winking. "Better hurry up, hadn't we, Molly?" she added, checking her watch.**

"**I know, I know," moaned Mrs. Weasley, lengthening her stride, "but Mad-Eye wanted to wait for Sturgis… if only Arthur could have got us cars from the Ministry again… but Fudge won't let him borrow so much as an empty ink bottle these days… how Muggles can stand traveling without magic."**

**But the great black dog gave a joyful bark and gamboled around them, snapping at pigeons and chasing its own tail. Harry couldn't help laughing. Sirius had been trapped inside for a very long time. Mrs. Weasley pursed her lips in an almost Aunt Petunia-ish way.**

Lupin muttered something about none-existing words.

**It took them twenty minutes to reach King's Cross on foot and nothing more eventful happened during that time than Sirius scaring a couple of cats for Harry's entertainment. Once inside the station they lingered casually beside the barrier between platforms nine and ten until the coast was clear, then each of them leaned against it in turn and fell easily through on to platform nine and three-quarters, where the Hogwarts Express stood belching sooty steam over a platform packed with departing students and their families. Harry inhaled the familiar smell and felt his spirits soar… he was really going back…**

"**I hope the others make it in time," said Mrs. Weasley anxiously, staring behind her at the wrought-iron arch spanning the platform, through which new arrivals would come.**

"**Nice dog, Harry!" called a tall boy with dreadlocks.**

"**Thanks, Lee," said Harry, grinning, as Sirius wagged his tail frantically.**

"**Oh good," said Mrs. Weasley, sounding relieved, "here's Alastor with the luggage, look…"**

**A porter's cap pulled low over his mismatched eyes, Moody came limping through the archway pushing a trolley loaded with their trunks.**

"**All okay," he muttered to Mrs. Weasley and Tonks, "don't think we were followed…"**

Harry rolled his eyes at this statement but no one else did. Now that they knew that Voldemort was back they also knew that Harry was in grave danger.

**Seconds later, Mr. Weasley emerged on to the platform with Ron and Hermione. They had almost unloaded Moody's luggage trolley when Fred, George and Ginny turned up with Lupin.**

"**No trouble?" growled Moody.**

"**Nothing," said Lupin.**

"**I'll still be reporting Sturgis to Dumbledore," said Moody, "that's the second time he's not turned up in a week. Getting as unreliable as Mundungus."**

The order members looked a little worried at that.

**"Well, look after yourselves," said Lupin, shaking hands all round. He reached Harry last and gave him a clap on the shoulder. "You too Harry. Be careful."**

"**Yeah, keep your head down and your eyes peeled," said Moody, shaking Harry's hand too. "And don't forget, all of you - careful what you put in writing. If in doubt, don't put it in a letter at all."**

"**It's been great meeting all of you," said Tonks, hugging Hermione and Ginny "We'll see you soon, I expect."**

"Well, I hope so", Ginny smiled. Hermione and her had grown quite fond of her.

**A warning whistle sounded; the students still on the platform started hurrying on to the train.**

"**Quick, quick," said Mrs. Weasley distractedly, hugging them at random and catching Harry twice. "Write… be good… if you've forgotten anything we'll send it on… on to the train, now, hurry…"**

**For one brief moment, the great black dog reared on to its hind legs and placed its front paws on Harry's shoulders, but Mrs. Weasley shoved Harry away towards the train door, hissing, "For heaven's sake, act more like a dog, Sirius!"**

The twins and Ron laughed, but Harry and Hermione exchanged worried glances.

"**See you!" Harry called out of the open window as the train began to move, while Ron, Hermione and Ginny waved beside him. The figures of Tonks, Lupin, Moody and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley shrank rapidly but the black dog was bounding alongside the window, wagging its tail; blurred people on the platform were laughing to see it chasing the train, then they rounded a bend, and Sirius was gone.**

"**He shouldn't have come with us," said Hermione in a worried voice.**

"**Oh, lighten up," said Ron, "he hasn't seen daylight for months, poor bloke."**

For a moment Sirius looked bitter, but continued as if nothing was wrong.

"**Well," said Fred, clapping his hands together, "can't stand around chatting all day, we've got business to discuss with Lee. See you later," and he and George disappeared down the corridor to the right.**

**The train was gathering still more speed, so that the houses outside the window flashed past, and they swayed where they stood.**

"**Shall we go and find a compartment, then?" Harry asked.**

"We have to go to the prefect compartment", Hermione said sadly.

**Ron and Hermione exchanged looks.**

"**Er," said Ron.**

"**We're - well - Ron and I are supposed to go into the prefect carriage," Hermione said awkwardly.**

**Ron wasn't looking at Harry; he seemed to have become intensely interested in the fingernails on his left hand.**

"**Oh," said Harry. "Right. Fine."**

"**I don't think we'll have to stay there all journey," said Hermione quickly. "Our letters said we just get instructions from the Head Boy and Girl and then patrol the corridors from time to time."**

"**Fine," said Harry again. "Well, I - I might see you later, then."**

"**Yeah, definitely," said Ron, casting a shifty, anxious look at Harry. "It's a pain having to go down there, I'd rather - but we have to -I mean, I'm not enjoying it, I'm not Percy," he finished defiantly.**

"No, you're not", Harry smiled at him. Ron seemed to relax at this.

"**I know you're not," said Harry and he grinned. But as Hermione and Ron dragged their trunks, Crookshanks and a caged Pigwidgeon off towards the engine end of the train, Harry felt an odd sense of loss. He had never traveled on the Hogwarts Express without Ron.**

"**Come on," Ginny told him, "if we get a move on we'll be able to save them places."**

Why aren't you sitting with Michael?", Hermione asked.

Ginny shrugged.

"Who?", Ron said suddenly very sharp.

Hermiones ignored him and told Sirius to reed on.

**"Right," said Harry, picking up Hedwig's cage in one hand and the handle of his trunk in the other. They struggled off down the corridor, peering through the glass-paneled doors into the compartments they passed, which were already full. Harry could not help noticing that a lot of people stared back at him with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbors and pointed him out. After he had met this behavior in five consecutive carriages he remembered that the Daily Prophet had been telling its readers all summer what a lying show-off he was. He wondered dully whether the people now staring and whispering believed the stories.**

"If they do then they're just stupid",Ron defended his best mate.

**In the very last carriage they met Neville Longbottom, Harry's fellow fifth-year Gryffindor, his round face shining with the effort of pulling his trunk along and maintaining a one-handed grip on his struggling toad, Trevor.**

"**Hi, Harry" he panted. "Hi, Ginny… every where's full… I can't find a seat…"**

**"What are you talking about?" said Ginny, who had squeezed past Neville to peer into the compartment behind him. "There's room in this one, there's only Loony Lovegood in here —"**

"Sorry", Ginny looked really ashamed," I don't know why I called you that"

"Maybe because she really IS loony", Ron whispered, but only Harry heard him.

Luna just shrugged and smiled.

**Neville mumbled something about not wanting to disturb anyone.**

"**Don't be silly," said Ginny, laughing, "she's all right."**

"Thank you", Luna said dreamily.

**She slid the door open and pulled her trunk inside. Harry and Neville followed.**

"**Hi, Luna," said Ginny, "is it okay if we take these seats?"**

**The girl beside the window looked up. She had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. Harry knew at once why Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer corks, or that she was reading a magazine upside-down. Her eyes ranged over Neville and came to rest on Harry. She nodded.**

Everyone looked slightly amused by this very accurate description except for Luna, who stared out of the window.

"**Thanks," said Ginny, smiling at her.**

**Harry and Neville stowed the three trunks and Hedwig's cage in the luggage rack and sat down.**

**Luna watched them over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler. **

Hermione snorted.

**She did not seem to need to blink as much as normal humans. She stared and stared at Harry, who had taken the seat opposite her and now wished he hadn't.**

"Because of the Nargels?"

"Erm...", was all Harry said.

"**Had a good summer, Luna?" Ginny asked.**

**"Yes," said Luna dreamily, without taking her eyes off Harry. "Yes, it was quite enjoyable, you know. You're Harry Potter," she added.**

"**I know I am," said Harry. **

"Very good Harry"

"Now you even know your name", the twins said as if he was a two year old.

**Neville chuckled. Luna turned her pale eyes on him instead.**

"**And I don't know who you are."**

"**I'm nobody," said Neville hurriedly.**

"Yes you are!", Ron said to everyone's surprise. Neville blushed.

"**No you're not," said Ginny sharply. "Neville Longbottom - Luna Lovegood. Luna's in my year, but in Ravenclaw."**

"**Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure," said Luna in a singsong voice.**

**She raised her upside-down magazine high enough to hide her face and fell silent. Harry and Neville looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. Ginny suppressed a giggle.**

**The train rattled onwards, speeding them out into open country. It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of sunlight and the next they were passing beneath ominously grey clouds.**

"**Guess what I got for my birthday?" said Neville.**

"**Another Remembrall?" said Harry, remembering the marble-like device Neville's grandmother had sent him in an effort to improve his abysmal memory.**

"**No," said Neville. "I could do with one, though, I lost the old one ages ago… no, look at this…"**

**He dug the hand that was not keeping a firm grip on Trevor into his schoolbag and after a little bit of rummaging pulled out what appeared to be a small grey cactus in a pot, except that it was covered with what looked like boils rather than spines.**

"Mimbulus mimbletonia," Neville said in a very Luna-ish way.

"**Mimbulus mimbletonia," he said proudly.**

**Harry stared at the thing. It was pulsating slightly, giving it the rather sinister look of some diseased internal organ.**

"**It's really, really rare," said Neville, beaming. "I don't know if there's one in the greenhouse at Hogwarts, even. I can't wait to show it to Professor Sprout. My Great Uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria. I'm going to see if I can breed from it."**

Professor McGonagall smiled slightly. She often got annoyed with that boy but he really has a hand for magical plants.

**Harry knew that Neville's favorite subject was Herbology but for the life of him he could not see what he would want with this stunted little plant.**

"**Does it - er - do anything?" he asked.**

"**Loads of stuff!" said Neville proudly. "It's got an amazing defensive mechanism. Here, hold Trevor for me…"**

**He dumped the toad into Harry's lap and took a quill from his schoolbag. Luna Lovegood's popping eyes appeared over the top of her upside-down magazine again, to watch what Neville was doing. Neville held the Mimbulus mimbletonia up t o his eyes, his tongue between his teeth, chose his spot, and gave the plant a sharp prod with the tip of his quill.**

**Liquid squirted from every boil on the plant; thick, stinking, dark green jets of it. They hit the ceiling, the windows, and spattered Luna Lovegood's magazine; Ginny, who had flung her arms up in front of her face just in time, merely looked as though she was wearing a slimy green hat,**

**but Harry, whose hands had been busy preventing Trevor's escape, received a faceful. It smelled like rancid manure.**

The twins roared with laughter and everyone (except the obvious like Snape, Mad Eye, Dumbledore etc.) joined in.

**Neville, whose face and torso were also drenched, shook his head to get the worst out of his eyes.**

"**S - sorry," he gasped. "I haven't tried that before… didn't realize it would be quite so… don't worry, though, Stinksap's not poisonous," he added nervously, as Harry spat a mouthful on to the floor.**

**At that precise moment the door of their compartment slid open.**

"**Oh… hello, Harry," said a nervous voice. "Um… bad time?"**

**Harry wiped the lenses of his glasses with his Trevor-free hand. A very pretty girl with long, shiny black hair was standing in the doorway smiling at him: Cho Chang, the Seeker on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.**

"Harry's got a cruhush", the twins looked like christmas had come early.

Ginny though looked furious.

"**Oh… hi," said Harry blankly.**

"**Um…" said Cho. "Well… just thought I'd say hello… bye then."**

**Rather pink in the face, she closed the door and departed. Harry slumped back in his seat and groaned. He would have liked Cho to discover him sitting with a group of very cool people laughing their heads off at a joke he had just told; he would not have chosen to be sitting with Neville and Loony Lovegood, clutching a toad and dripping in Stinksap.**

"Hey", Ginny said though she couldn't help but notice that she didn't seem to be uncool.

"Sorry", Harry replied, his eyes darted to the floor.

"**Never mind," said Ginny bracingly. "Look, we can easily get rid of all this." She pulled out her wand. "Scourgify!"**

**The Stinksap vanished.**

"**Sorry," said Neville again, in a small voice.**

**Ron and Hermione did not turn up for nearly an hour, by which time the food trolley had already gone by. Harry, Ginny and Neville had finished their pumpkin pasties and were busy swapping Chocolate Frog Cards when the compartment door slid open and they walked in, accompanied by Crookshanks and a shrilly hooting Pigwidgeon in his cage.**

"**I'm starving," said Ron, stowing Pigwidgeon next to Hedwig, grabbing a Chocolate Frog from Harry and throwing himself into the seat next to him. He ripped open the wrapper, bit off the frog's head and leaned back with his eyes closed as though he had had a very exhausting morning.**

Harry was more and more grateful that he wasn't a prefect.

"**Well, there are two fifth-year prefects from each house," said Hermione, looking thoroughly disgruntled as she took her seat. "Boy and girl from each."**

"**And guess who's a Slytherin prefect?" said Ron, still with his eyes closed.**

"**Malfoy," replied Harry at once, certain his worst fear would be confirmed.**

"**Course," said Ron bitterly, stuffing the rest of the Frog into his mouth and taking another.**

"**And that complete cow Pansy Parkinson," said Hermione viciously. "How she got to be a prefect when she's thicker than a concussed troll…"**

Everyone looked at Hermione like she'd grown a third head.

"**Who's Hufflepuff?" Harry asked.**

"**Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott," said Ron thickly.**

**"And Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw," said Hermione.**

"**You went to the Yule Ball with Padma Patil," said a vague voice.**

**Everyone turned to look at Luna Lovegood, who was gazing unblinkingly at Ron over the top of The Quibbler. He swallowed his mouthful of Frog.**

"**Yeah, I know I did," he said, looking mildly surprised.**

"**She didn't enjoy it very much," Luna informed him. "She doesn't think you treated her very well, because you wouldn't dance with her. I don't think I'd have minded," she added thoughtfully, "I don't like dancing very much."**

**She retreated behind The Quibbler again. Ron stared at the cover with his mouth hanging open for a few seconds, then looked around at Ginny for some kind of explanation, but Ginny had stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stop herself giggling. Ron shook his head, bemused, then checked his watch.**

"**We're supposed to patrol the corridors every so often," he told Harry and Neville, "and we can give out punishments if people are misbehaving. I can't wait to get Crabbe and Goyle for something."**

"**You're not supposed to abuse your position, Ron!" said Hermione sharply.**

"**Yeah, right, because Malfoy won't abuse it at all," said Ron sarcastically.**

"**So you're going to descend to his level?"**

"**No, I'm just going to make sure I get his mates before he gets mine."**

Snape looked like was about to give Ron detention but Sirius read on in a slightly raised voice as if to remind everyone not to interrupt.

"**For heaven's sake, Ron -"**

"**I'll make Goyle do lines, it'll kill him, he hates writing," said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle's low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. "I… must… not… look… like… a… baboon's… backside."**

"Good one," the twins said rather surprised while Luna started laughing like a madman.

**Everyone laughed, but nobody laughed harder than Luna Lovegood. She let out a scream of mirth that caused Hedwig to wake up and flap her wings indignantly and Crookshanks to leap up into the luggage rack, hissing. Luna laughed so hard her magazine slipped out of her grasp, slid down her legs and on to the floor.**

"**That was funny!"**

**Her prominent eyes swam with tears as she gasped for breath, staring at Ron. Utterly nonplussed, he looked around at the others, who were now laughing at the expression on Ron's face and at the ludicrously prolonged laughter of Luna Lovegood, who was rocking backwards and forwards, clutching her sides.**

"**Are you taking the mickey?" said Ron, frowning at her.**

"**Baboon's… backside!" she choked, holding her ribs.**

**Everyone else was watching Luna laughing, but Harry glancing at the magazine on the floor, noticed something that made him dive for it. Upside-down it had been hard to tell what the picture on the front was, but Harry now realized it was a fairly bad cartoon of Cornelius Fudge; Harry only recognized him because of the lime-green bowler hat. One of Fudge's hands was clenched around a bag of gold; the other hand was throttling a goblin. The cartoon was captioned: How Far Will Fudge Go to Gain Gringotts?**

**Beneath this were listed the titles of other articles inside the magazine.**

**Corruption in the Quidditch League:**

**How the Tornados are Taking Control**

**Secrets of the Ancient Runes Revealed**

**Sirius Black: Villain or Victim?**

"**Can I have a look at this?" Harry asked Luna eagerly.**

**She nodded, still gazing at Ron, breathless with laughter.**

**Harry opened the magazine and scanned the index. Until this moment he had completely forgotten the magazine Kingsley had handed Mr. Weasley to give to Sirius, but it must have been this edition of The Quibbler.**

**He found the page, and turned excitedly to the article.**

**This, too, was illustrated by a rather bad cartoon; in fact, Harry would not have known it was supposed to be Sirius if it hadn't been captioned. Sirius was standing on a pile of human bones with his wand out. The headline on the article said:**

**SIRIUS - BLACK AS HE'S PAINTED?**

**Notorious mass murderer or innocent singing sensation?**

"I doubt that", Lupin said."In fact, everyone who's ever heard Sirius sing would doubt that"

**Harry had to read this first sentence several times before he was convinced that he had not misunderstood it. Since when had Sirius been a singing sensation?**

**For fourteen years Sirius Black has been believed guilty of the mass murder of twelve innocent Muggles and one wizard. Black's audacious escape from Azkaban two years ago has led to the widest manhunt ever conducted by the Ministry of Magic. None of us has ever questioned that he deserves to be recaptured and handed back to the Dementors.**

**BUT DOES HE?**

**Startling new evidence has recently come to light that Sirius Black may not have committed the crimes for which he was sent to Azkaban. In fact, says Doris Purkiss, of 18 Acanthia Way, Little Norton, Black may not even have been present at the killings.**

"**What people don't realize is that Sirius Black is a false name," says Mrs. Purkiss. "The man people believe to be Sirius Black is actually Stubby Boardman, lead singer of popular singing group The Hobgoblins, who retired from public life after being struck on the ear by a turnip at a concert in Little Norton Church Hall nearly fifteen years ago. I recognized him the moment I saw his picture in the paper. Now, Stubby couldn't possibly have committed those crimes, because on the day in question he happened to be enjoying a romantic candlelit dinner with me. I have written to the Minister for Magic and am expecting him to give Stubby, alias - Sirius, a full pardon any day now."**

**Harry finished reading and stared at the page in disbelief. Perhaps it was a joke, he thought, perhaps the magazine often printed spoof Hems. He flicked back a few pages and found the piece on Fudge.**

**Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, denied that he had any plans to take over the running of the Wizarding Bank, Gringotts, when he was elected Minister for Magic five years ago. Fudge has always insisted that he wants nothing more than to 'co-operate peacefully' with the guardians of our gold.**

**BUT DOES HE?**

**Sources close to the Minister have recently disclosed that Fudge's dearest ambition is to seize control of the goblin gold supplies and that he will not hesitate to use force if need be.**

"**It wouldn't be the first time, either," said a Ministry insider. "Cornelius 'Goblin-Crusher' Fudge, that's what his friends call him. If you could hear him when he thinks no one's listening, oh, he's always talking about the goblins he's had done in; he's had them drowned, ****he's had them dropped off buildings, he's had them poisoned, he's had them cooked in pies…"**

Most of the people chuckled or looked amused. Dumbledore merely looked interested and Hermione muttered under her breath.

**Harry did not read any further. Fudge might have many faults but Harry found it extremely hard to imagine him ordering goblins to be cooked in pies. He flicked through the rest of the magazine. Pausing every few pages, he read: an accusation that the Tutshill Tornados were winning the Quidditch League by a combination of blackmail, illegal broom-tampering and torture; an interview with a wizard who claimed to have flown to the moon on a Cleansweep Six and brought back a bag of moon frogs to prove it; and an article on ancient runes which at least explained why Luna had been reading The Quibbler upside-down. According to the magazine, if you turned the runes on their heads they revealed a spell to make your enemy's ears turn into kumquats. In fact, compared to the rest of the articles in The Quibbler, the suggestion that Sirius might really be the lead singer of The Hobgoblins was quite sensible.**

"**Anything good in there?" asked Ron as Harry closed the magazine.**

"**Of course not," said Hermione scathingly, before Harry could answer. "The Quibbler's rubbish, everyone knows that."**

"Excuse me", Luna said suddenly very cold, "my dad's the editor."

Hermione looked quite embarrased.

"**Excuse me," said Luna; her voice had suddenly lost its dreamy quality. "My father's the editor."**

"**I - oh," said Hermione, looking embarrassed. "Well, it's got some interesting… I mean, it's quite…"**

Sirius shook her head at her.

"You've got to learn a lot Hermione"

"**I'll have it back, thank you," said Luna coldly, and leaning forwards she snatched it out of Harry's hands. Riffling through it to page fifty-seven, she turned it resolutely upside-down again and disappeared behind it, just as the compartment door opened for the third time.**

**Harry looked around; he had expected this, but that did not make the sight of Draco Malfoy smirking at him from between his cronies Crabbe and Goyle any more enjoyable.**

"**What?" he said aggressively, before Malfoy could open his mouth.**

"**Manners, Potter, or I'll have to give you a detention," drawled Malfoy, whose sleek blond hair and pointed chin were just like his fathers. "You see, I, unlike you, have been made a prefect, which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments."**

"**Yeah," said Harry, "but you, unlike me, are a git, so get out and leave us alone."**

"Good one ", the twins, Sirius, Ron and Ginny said.

**Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville laughed. Malfoy's lip curled.**

"**Tell me, how does it feel being second-best to Weasley, Potter?" he asked.**

"**Shut up, Malfoy," said Hermione sharply.**

"**I seem to have touched a nerve," said Malfoy, smirking. "Well, just watch yourself, Potter, because I'll be dogging your footsteps in case you step out of line."**

"Damn", Lupin cursed, "he noticed Sirius. The traitor probably told them all about him being an Animagus.

"**Get out!" said Hermione, standing up.**

**Sniggering, Malfoy gave Harry a last malicious look and departed, with Crabbe and Goyle lumbering along in his wake. Hermione slammed the compartment door behind them and turned to look at Harry, who knew at once that she, like him, had registered what Malfoy had said and been just as unnerved by it.**

"**Chuck us another Frog," said Ron, who had clearly noticed nothing.**

Hermione rolled her eyes. Sometimes Ron really _was_ thick. Well, usually he was.

**Harry could not talk freely in front of Neville and Luna. He exchanged another nervous look with Hermione, then stared out of the window.**

**He had thought Sirius coming with him to the station was a bit of a laugh, but suddenly it seemed reckless, if not downright dangerous… Hermione had been right… Sirius should not have come.**

**What if Malfoy had noticed the black dog and told Draco? What if he had deduced that the Weasleys, Lupin, Tonks and Moody knew where Sirius was hiding? Or had Malfoy's use of the word dogging been a coincidence?**

"Doubt it", Hermione muttered.

**The weather remained undecided as they traveled further and further north. Rain spattered the windows in a half-hearted way, then the sun put in a feeble appearance before clouds drifted over it once more. When darkness fell and lamps came on inside the carriages, Luna rolled up The Quibbler, put it carefully away in her bag and took to staring at everyone in the compartment instead.**

**Harry was sitting with his forehead pressed against the train window, trying to get a first distant glimpse of Hogwarts, but it was a moonless night and the rain-streaked window was grimy.**

"**We'd better change," said Hermione at last, and all of them opened their trunks with difficulty and pulled on their school robes. She and Ron pinned their prefect badges carefully to their chests. Harry saw Ron checking his reflection in the black window.**

"You're very observant Harry", Mr. Weasley stated.

**At last, the train began to slow down and they heard the usual racket up and down it as everybody scrambled to get their luggage and pets assembled, ready to get off. As Ron and Hermione were supposed to supervise all this, they disappeared from the carriage again, leaving Harry and the others to look after Crookshanks and Pigwidgeon.**

"**I'll carry that owl, if you like, " said Luna to Harry, reaching out for Pigwidgeon as Neville stowed Trevor carefully in an inside pocket.**

"**Oh - er - thanks, " said Harry, handing her the cage and hoisting Hedwig's more securely into his arms.**

**They shuffled out of the compartment feeling the first sting of the night air on their faces as they joined the crowd in the corridor. Slowly, they moved towards the doors. Harry could smell the pine trees that lined the path down to the lake. He stepped down on to the platform and looked around, listening for the familiar call of "firs'-years over 'ere… firs'-years…"**

**But it did not come. Instead, a quite different voice, a brisk female one, was calling out, "First years line up over here, please! All first-years to me!"**

"Where Hagrid?" Harry, Ron and Hermione asked at once.

The adult's ignored them easily.

**A lantern came swinging towards Harry and by its light he saw the prominent chin and severe haircut of Professor Grubbly-Plank, the witch who had taken over Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons for a while the previous year.**

"**Where's Hagrid?" he said out loud.**

"**I don't know," said Ginny, "but we'd better get out of the way, we're blocking the door."**

"**Oh, yeah…"**

**Harry and Ginny became separated as they moved off along the platform and out through the station. Jostled by the crowd, Harry squinted through the darkness for a glimpse of Hagrid; he had to be here, Harry had been relying on it - seeing Hagrid again was one of the things he'd been looking forward to most. But there was no sign of him.**

**He can't have left, Harry told himself as he shuffled slowly through a narrow doorway on to the road outside with the rest of the crowd. He's just got a cold or something…**

"Of course he didn't leave. At least not forever", Hermione reassured him.

**He looked around for Ron or Hermione, wanting to know what they thought about the reappearance of Professor Grubbly-Plank, but neither of them was anywhere near him, so he allowed himself to be shunted forwards on to the dark rain-washed road outside Hogsmeade Station.**

**Here stood the hundred or so horseless stagecoaches that always took the students above first year up to the castle. Harry glanced quickly at them, turned away to keep a lookout for Ron and Hermione, then did a double-take.**

**The coaches were no longer horseless. There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts. If he had had to give them a name, he supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring. Wings sprouted from each wither - vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gathering gloom, the creatures looked eerie and sinister. **

"Thestrals", Professor McGonagall said.

Hermiones eyes went big.

**Harry could not understand why the coaches were being pulled by these horrible horses when they were quite capable of moving along by themselves.**

"**Where's Pig?" said Ron's voice, right behind Harry.**

"**That Luna girl was carrying him," said Harry, turning quickly, eager to consult Ron about Hagrid. "Where d'you reckon -"**

"**- Hagrid is? I dunno," said Ron, sounding worried. "He'd better be okay…"**

**A short distance away, Draco Malfoy, followed by a small gang of cronies including Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson, was pushing some timid-looking second-years out of the way so that he and his friends could get a coach to themselves. Seconds later, Hermione emerged panting from the crowd.**

"**Malfoy was being absolutely foul to a first-year back there. I swear I'm going to report him, he's only had his badge three minutes and he's using it to bully people worse than ever… where's Crookshanks?"**

"**Ginny's got him," said Harry. "There she is…"**

**Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks.**

"**Thanks," said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. "Come on, let's get a carriage together ****before they all fill up…"**

"**I haven't got Pig yet!" Ron said, but Hermione was already heading off towards the nearest unoccupied coach. Harry remained behind with Ron.**

"**What are those things, d'you reckon?" he asked Ron, nodding at the horrible horses as the other students surged past them.**

"**What things?"**

"**Those horse -"**

"We can't see them," Hermione explained to a confused Ron. "Only people who have seen someone die can see them"

**Luna appeared holding Pigwidgeon's cage in her arms; the tiny owl was twittering excitedly as usual.**

"**Here you are," she said. "He's a sweet little owl, isn't he?"**

"**Er… yeah… he's all right," said Ron gruffly. "Well, come on then, let's get in… what were you saying, Harry?"**

"**I was saying, what are those horse things?" Harry said, as he, Ron and Luna made for the carriage in which Hermione and Ginny were already sitting.**

"**What horse things?"**

"**The horse things pulling the carriages!" said Harry impatiently. They were, after all, about three feet from the nearest one; it was watching them with empty white eyes. Ron, however, gave Harry a perplexed look.**

"**What are you talking about?"**

"**I'm talking about - look!"**

**Harry grabbed Ron's arm and wheeled him about so that he was face to face with the winged horse. Ron stared straight at it for a second, then looked back at Harry.**

"I bet I'm thinking you're mental"

"**What am I supposed to be looking at?"**

"**At the - there, between the shafts! Harnessed to the coach! It's right there in front"**

**But as Ron continued to look bemused, a strange thought occurred to Harry.**

"**Can't… can't you see them?"**

"**See what?"**

"**Can't you see what's pulling the carriages?"**

**Ron looked seriously alarmed now.**

"**Are you feeling all right, Harry?"**

**"I… yeah…"**

**Harry felt utterly bewildered. The horse was there in front of him, gleaming solidly in the dim light issuing from the station windows behind them, vapour rising from its nostrils in the chilly night air. Yet, unless Ron was faking - and it was a very feeble joke if he was - Ron could not see it at all.**

"**Shall we get in, then?" said Ron uncertainly, looking at Harry as though worried about him.**

"**Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, go on…"**

"**It's all right," said a dreamy voice from beside Harry as Ron vanished into the coach's dark interior. "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them, too."**

"**Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide silvery eyes.**

"**Oh, yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them ever since my first day here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am"**

**Smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after Ron. Not altogether reassured, Harry followed her.**

_**Okay. Another chapter is up. I know it gets worse in the end but...**_

_**PLEASE review. Right now I don't really know if you want me to continue this story or not so...**_


	6. The Sorting Hat's New Song

**So...first of all : Thank you, to everyone who has reviewed my story! **

**I'm also getting mails everyday, that someone has put my story to their story alert or their favorite story list. Im freaking out, everytime :D  
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**Now to the story: A few day's ago I noticed that I didn't write the reaction of Neville and Luna, when they found out, that Sirius Black was there. I'm going to fix that after I posted this chapter.**

**The Harry Potter universe is not mine.  
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**PLEASE review, I really want to know what you think of the story and my writing style (especially of my English)**

"Could I read next?", Ginny asked.

"Sure", Sirius replied. He handed Ginny the book, and she began reading:

**"The Sorting Hat's New Song," **

"Why is that the title of the chapter?", Ron asked confused. "He's got a new song every year. That's not an important information!"

"Of course", Hermione replied impatiently, "but maybe this one is different. We don't know. If you would just be quiet, then we could find out"

After she turned to Ginny, Ron rolled his eyes behind her back.

**Harry did not want to tell the others that he and Luna were having the same hallucination**

"It is no hallucination Harry", Luna said, smiling at him with her with a dreamy expression.

**, if that was what it was, so he said nothing more about the horses as he sat down inside the carriage and slammed the door behind him. Nevertheless, he could not help watching the silhouettes of the horses moving beyond the window.**

"Pity", Neville said. "I could have told you that I see them, too"

"Really? Who did you see di – OW!"

Hermione had hit Ron on the arm rather hard.

"**Did everyone see that Grubbly-Plank woman?" asked Ginny. "What's she doing back here? Hagrid can't have left, can he?"**

"**I'll be quite glad if he has," said Luna, "he isn't a very good teacher, is he?"**

"Yes he is!", harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville the twins and Hermione ( though rather late) yelled.

"I don't think so. You're just saying that, because you like him" Luna said, proving that she maybe WAS a bit dreamy, but certainly not stupid.

"No, we're not", Ron said rather lamely.

"**Yes, he is!" said Harry, Ron and Ginny angrily.**

**Harry glared at Hermione. She cleared her throat and quickly said, "Erm… yes… he's very good."**

Hermione blushed and avoided the dirty looks that some people where giving her.

"**Well, we in Ravenclaw think he's a bit of a joke," said Luna, unfazed.**

"**You've got a rubbish sense of humor then," Ron snapped, as the wheels below them creaked into motion.**

"Ron!", Mrs. Weasley scolded.

**Luna did not seem perturbed by Ron's rudeness; on the contrary, she simply watched him for a while as though he were a mildly interesting television program.**

"What's a television?", Sirius asked.

"You took muggle studies Sirius, for goodness sake!"

"I know, Moony. But only so my Mum would get a heart attack and die!"

**Rattling and swaying, the carriages moved in convoy up the road. When they passed between the tall stone pillars topped with winged boars on either side of the gates to the school grounds, Harry leaned forwards to try and see whether there were any lights on in Hagrid's cabin by the Forbidden Forest, but the grounds were in complete darkness. Hogwarts Castle, however, loomed ever closer: a towering mass of turrets, jet black against the dark sky, here and there a window blazing fiery bright above them.**

**The carriages jingled to a halt near the stone steps leading up to the oak front doors and Harry got out of the carriage first. He turned again to look for lit windows down by the Forest, but there was definitely no sign of life within Hagrids cabin. Unwillingly, because he had half-hoped they would have vanished, he turned his eyes instead upon the strange, skeletal creatures standing quietly in the chill night air, their blank white eyes gleaming.**

**Harry had once before had the experience of seeing something that Ron could not, but that had been a reflection in a mirror, something much more insubstantial than a hundred very solid looking beasts strong enough to pull a fleet of carriages. If Luna was to be believed, the beasts had always been there but invisible. Why, then, could Harry suddenly see them, and why could Ron not?**

"Because Ron never saw anyone die", Hermione said sadly.

Sirius also looked grave. When he was made Godfather, he had promised to James that he would protect Harry, if anything happened to them. And now there his fifteen year old godson was, having lived through more than most adults.

_I'm sorry James, Lily,_ he thought.

"**Are you coming or what?" said Ron beside him.**

"**Oh… yeah," said Harry quickly and they joined the crowd hurrying up the stone steps into the castle.**

**The Entrance Hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.**

**The four long house tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other houses, eyeing one another's new haircuts and robes. Again, Harry noticed people putting their heads together to whisper as he passed; he gritted his teeth and tried to act as though he neither noticed nor cared.**

**Luna drifted away from them at the Ravenclaw table. The moment they reached Gryffindors, Ginny was hailed by some fellow fourth-years and left to sit with them; Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost, and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry airy, overly-friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before. **

"Stupid bitches", Ginny hissed.

"Ginerva Molly Weasley, if you EVER use such a word again...", Mrs. Weasley didn't have to finish that sentence.

**He had more important things to worry about, however: he was looking over the students' heads to the staff table that ran along the top wall of the Hall.**

"**He's not there."**

**Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though there was no real need; Hagrid's size made him instantly obvious in any lineup.**

"**He can't have left," said Ron, sounding slightly anxious.**

"**Of course he hasn't," said Harry firmly.**

"**You don't think he's… hurt, or anything, do you?" said Hermione uneasily.**

"**No," said Harry at once.**

"**But where is he, then?"**

**There was a pause, then Harry said very quietly, so that Neville, Parvati and Lavender could not hear, **

Neville looked a little sad at that. Of course he was no more than...well, than _Neville_ to them.

"**Maybe he's not back yet. You know - from his mission - the thing he was doing over the summer for Dumbledore.'**

"**Yeah… yeah, that'll be it," said Ron, sounding reassured, but Hermione bit her lip, looking up and down the staff table as though hoping for some conclusive explanation of Hagrid's absence.**

"**Who's that?" she said sharply, pointing towards the middle of the staff table.**

**Harry's eyes followed hers. They lit first upon Professor Dumbledore, sitting in his high-backed golden chair at the center of the long staff table, wearing deep-purple robes scattered with silvery stars and a matching hat. Dumbledore's head was inclined towards the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked, Harry thought, like somebody's maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes. **

"No," Everyone groaned in unison (A/N I won't point out that Snape and Dumbledore don't do that so...)

Remus cursed under his breath. This person has made his life hell. He couldn't find a job anymore, and she was even trying to pass a law (A/N is that correct? to pass a law?) to forbid werwolves to get married. Not that he would ever marry anyone. He was a poor, old werewolf, after all

**Then she turned her face slightly to take a sip from her goblet and he saw, with a shock of recognition, a pallid, toadlike face and a pair of prominent, pouchy eyes.**

"**It's that Umbridge woman!"**

"**Who?" said Hermione.**

"**She was at my hearing, she works for Fudge!"**

"**Nice cardigan," said Ron, smirking.**

The twins laughed.

"That's not a laughing matter!", Hermione said with a shrill voice. "What is she doing at Hogwarts?"

"**She works for Fudge!" Hermione repeated, frowning. "What on earth's she doing here, then?"**

"**Dunno…"**

**Hermione scanned the staff table, her eyes narrowed.**

"**No," she muttered, "no, surely not…"**

"What?" Ron asked annoyed by Hermiones habit to talk in riddles.

"I don't know..maybe...wait a bit, then I can find out."

**Harry did not understand what she was talking about but did not ask; his attention had been caught by Professor Grubbly-Plank who had just appeared behind the staff table; she worked her way along to the very end and took the seat that ought to have been Hagrids. That meant the first-years must have crossed the lake and reached the castle, and sure enough, a few seconds later, the doors from the Entrance Hall opened. A long line of scared-looking first-years entered, led by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stool on which sat an ancient wizard's hat, heavily patched and darned with a wide rip near the frayed brim.**

**The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first-years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back.**

**The first-years' faces glowed palely in the candlelight. A small boy right in the middle of the row looked as though he was trembling. Harry recalled, fleetingly, how terrified he had felt when he had stood there, waiting for the unknown test that would determine to which house he belonged. The whole school waited with bated breath. Then the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song:**

**In times of old when I was new,**

**And Hogwarts barely started,**

**The founders of our noble school,**

**Thought never to be parted,**

**United by a common goal,**

**They had the selfsame yearning,**

**To make the world's best magic school,**

**And pass along their learning.**

"**Together we will build and teach!"**

**The four good friends decided,**

**And never did they dream,**

**That they might some day be divided,**

**For were there such friends anywhere,**

**As Slytherin and Gryffindor?**

"SLYTHERIN AND GRIFFINDOR WHERE FRIENDS?", Ron, Harry and Sirius shouted, credulously. Most of the other teenagers looked shocked too, except for Luna and Hermione.

**Unless it was the second pair**

**Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?**

**So how could it have gone so wrong?**

**How could such friendships fail?**

**Why, I was there and so can tell,**

**The whole sad, sorry tale.**

**Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those whose**

**Ancestry is purest."**

**Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose**

**Intelligence is surest."**

**Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those**

**With brave deeds to their name."**

**Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot,**

**And treat them just the same."**

"See", Hermione said. "I don't get, why everyone doesn't want to be in Huffelpuff. All of the other founders said that they would only teach certain people. Huffelpuff, on the other hand said, that she would teach everyone."

The adults looked at Hermione admiringly.

"Sill", Ron said after a second, "Griffindor is the best!"

**These differences caused little strife,**

**When first they came to light,**

**For each of the four founders had**

**A house in which they might**

**Take only those they wanted,**

**So, for instance, Slytherin**

**Took only pure-blood wizards**

**Of great cunning, just like him,**

**And only those of sharpest mind**

**Were taught by Ravenclaw**

**While the bravest and the boldest**

**Went to daring Gryffindor.**

**Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest,**

**And taught them all she knew,**

"Only because she 'took the rest' ", Tonks quoted, "doesn't mean, that Hufflepuffs are stupid!"

**Thus the houses and their founders**

**Retained friendships firm and true.**

**So Hogwarts worked in harmony**

**For several happy years,**

**But then discord crept among us**

**Feeding on our faults and fears.**

**The houses that, like pillars four,**

**Had once held up our school,**

**Now turned upon each other and,**

**Divided, sought to rule.**

**And for a while it seemed the school**

**Must meet an early end,**

**What with dueling and with fighting**

**And the clash of friend on friend**

**And at last there came a morning**

**When old Slytherin departed**

**And though the fighting then died out**

**He left us quite downhearted.**

**And never since the founders four**

**Were whittled down to three**

**Have the houses been united**

**As they once were meant to be.**

**And now the Sorting Hat is here**

**And you all know the score:**

**I sort you into houses**

**Because that is what I'm for,**

**But this year I'll go further,**

**Listen closely to my song:**

**Though condemned I am to split you**

**Still I worry that it's wrong,**

**Though I must fulfill my duty**

**And must quarter every year**

**Still I wonder whether Sorting**

**May not bring the end I fear.**

**Oh, know the perils, read the signs,**

**The warning history shows,**

**For our Hogwarts is in danger**

**From external, deadly foes**

**And we must unite inside her**

**Or we'll crumble from within**

**I have told you, I have warned you…**

**Let the Sorting now begin.**

"That was cheerful", Fred said sarcastically.

"Well, he has a got reason to warn us", Hermione reminded him.

**The Hat became motionless once more; applause broke out, though it was punctured, for the first time in Harry's memory, with muttering and whispers. All across the Great Hall students were exchanging remarks with their neighbors, and Harry, clapping along with everyone else, knew exactly what they were talking about.**

"**Branched out a bit this year, hasn't it?" said Ron, his eyebrows raised.**

"**Too right it has," said Harry.**

**The Sorting Hat usually confined itself to describing the different qualities looked for by each of the four Hogwarts houses and its own role in Sorting them. Harry could not remember it ever trying to give the school advice before.**

**"I wonder if it's ever given warnings before?" said Hermione, sounding slightly anxious.**

"He has", Lupin said. "Last time HE was so powerful"

"**Yes, indeed," said Nearly Headless Nick knowledgeably, leaning across Neville towards her (Neville winced; it was very uncomfortable to have a ghost lean through you). "The Hat feels itself honor-bound to give the school due warning whenever it feels –"**

**But Professor McGonagall, who was waiting to read out the list of first-years' names, was giving the whispering students the sort of look that scorches. Nearly Headless Nick placed a see-through finger to his lips and sat primly upright again as the muttering came to an abrupt end.**

**With a last frowning look that swept the four house tables, Professor McGonagall lowered her eyes to her long piece of parchment and called out the first name.**

"**Abercrombie, Euan."**

**The terrified-looking boy Harry had noticed earlier stumbled forwards and put the Hat on his head; it was only prevented from falling right down to his shoulders by his very prominent ears. The Hat considered for a moment, then the rip near the brim opened again and shouted:**

"**Gryffindor!"**

"WOHOOO", Sirius, Fred and George cheered.

**Harry clapped loudly with the rest of Gryffindor house as Euan Abercrombie staggered to their table and sat down, looking as though he would like very much to sink through the floor and never be looked at again.**

**Slowly, the long line of first-years thinned. In the pauses between the names and the Sorting Hat's decisions, Harry could hear Ron's stomach rumbling loudly. Finally, "Zeller, Rose" was Sorted into Hufflepuff, and Professor McGonagall picked up the Hat and stool and marched them away as Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet.**

**Whatever his recent bitter feelings had been towards his Headmaster, Harry was somehow soothed to see Dumbledore standing before them all. **

**Between the absence of Hagrid and the presence of those dragonish horses, he had felt that his return to Hogwarts, so long anticipated, was full of unexpected surprises, like jarring notes in a familiar song. But this, at least, was how it was supposed to be: their Headmaster rising to greet them all before the start-of-term feast.**

**"To our newcomers," said Dumbledore in a ringing voice, his arms stretched wide and a beaming smile on his lips, "welcome! To our old hands - welcome back! There is a time for speechmaking, but this is not it. Tuck in!"**

**There was an appreciative laugh and an outbreak of applause as Dumbledore sat down neatly and threw his long beard over his shoulder so as to keep it out of the way of his plate - for food had appeared out of nowhere, **

"It doesn't appear out of nowhere Potter", Snape sneered, "food can't just 'appear. That's one of Gamps law of elemental transfiguration."

**so that the five long tables were groaning under joints and pies and dishes of vegetables, bread and sauces and flagons of pumpkin juice.**

"**Excellent," said Ron, with a kind of groan of longing, and he seized the nearest plate of chops and began piling them on to his plate, watched wistfully by Nearly Headless Nick.**

"**What were you saying before the Sorting?" Hermione asked the ghost. "About the Hat giving warnings?"**

"**Oh, yes," said Nick, who seemed glad of a reason to turn away from Ron, who was now eating roast potatoes with almost indecent enthusiasm. "Yes, I have heard the Hat give several warnings before, always at times when it detects periods of great danger for the school. And always, of course, its advice is the same: stand together, be strong from within."**

"**Ow kunnit nofe skusin danger ifzat?" said Ron.**

Mrs. Weasley just shook her head.

**His mouth was so full Harry thought it was quite an achievement for him to make any noise at all.**

"**I beg your pardon?" said Nearly Headless Nick politely, while Hermione looked revolted. Ron gave an enormous swallow and said, "How can it know if the school's in danger if it's a Hat?"**

**"I have no idea," said Nearly Headless Nick. "Of course, it lives in Dumbledore's office, so I daresay it picks things up there."**

"**And it wants all the houses to be friends?" said Harry, looking over at the Slytherin table, where Draco Malfoy was holding court. "Fat chance."**

"Harry, don't be so close minded", Hermione scolded.

"**Well, now, you shouldn't take that attitude," said Nick reprovingly. "Peaceful cooperation, that's the key. We ghosts, though we belong to separate houses, maintain links of friendship. In spite of the competitiveness between Gryffindor and Slytherin, I would never dream of seeking an argument with the Bloody Baron."**

"**Only because you're terrified of him," said Ron.**

**Nearly Headless Nick looked highly affronted.**

"**Terrified? I hope I, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, have never been guilty of cowardice in my life! The noble blood that runs in my veins -"**

"**What blood?" asked Ron. "Surely you haven't still got -?"**

Mrs. Weasley now shook her head even harder.

"**Its a figure of speech!" said Nearly Headless Nick, now so annoyed his head was trembling ominously on his partially severed neck. "I assume I am still allowed to enjoy the use of ****whichever words I like, even if the pleasures of eating and drinking are denied me! But I am quite used to students poking fun at my death, I assure you!"**

"**Nick, he wasn't really laughing at you!" said Hermione, throwing a furious look at Ron.**

**Unfortunately, Ron's mouth was packed to exploding point again and all he could manage was**

"**Node iddum eentup sechew," which Nick did not seem to think constituted an adequate apology.**

Mrs. Weasley now put her head in her hands.

**Rising into the air, he straightened his feathered hat and swept away from them to the other end of the table, coming to rest between the Creevey brothers, Colin and Dennis.**

"**Well done, Ron," snapped Hermione.**

"**What?" said Ron indignantly, having managed, finally, to swallow his food. "I'm not allowed to ask a simple question?"**

"**Oh, forget it," said Hermione irritably, and the pair of them spent the rest of the meal in huffy silence.**

**Harry was too used to their bickering to bother trying to reconcile them; he felt it was a better use of his time to eat his way steadily through his steak and kidney pie, then a large plateful of his favorite treacle tart.**

**When all the students had finished eating and the noise level in the Hall was starting to creep upwards again, Dumbledore got to his feet once more. Talking ceased immediately as all turned to lace the Headmaster. Harry was feeling pleasantly drowsy now. His four-poster bed was waiting somewhere above, wonderfully warm and soft…**

"**Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices," said Dumbledore. "First-years ought to know that the Forest in the grounds is out-of-bounds to students - and a few of our older students ought to know by now, too." (Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged smirks.)**

"**Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four-hundred-and-sixty second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things, all of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch's office door.**

"I'm sure everyone will check it with delight, don't you think so Gred?", George asked.

"I'm quite sure Forge".

"**We have had two changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons; we are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."**

**There was a round of polite but fairly unenthusiastic applause, during which Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged slightly panicked looks; Dumbledore had not said for how long Grubbly- Plank would be teaching.**

The present Ron, Hermione and Harry did the same thing.

**Dumbledore continued, "Tryouts for the house Quidditch teams will take place on the -"**

**He broke off, looking enquiringly at Professor Umbridge. As she was not much taller standing than sitting, there was a moment when nobody understood why Dumbledore had stopped talking, but then Professor Umbridge cleared her throat, "Hem, hem," and it became clear that she had got to her feet and was intending to make a speech.**

Most of the people looked shocked to say the least. Never, NEVER had a person interrupted Dumledores welcoming speech.

**Dumbledore only looked taken aback for a moment, then he sat down smartly and looked alertly at Professor Umbridge as though he desired nothing better than to listen to her talk. Other members of staff were not as adept at hiding their surprise. Professor Sprout's eyebrows had disappeared into her flyaway hair and Professor McGonagall's mouth was as thin as Harry had ever seen it. No new teacher had ever interrupted Dumbledore before. Many of the students were smirking; this woman obviously did not know how things were done at Hogwarts.**

"But she won't care", McGonagall said bitter.

"**Thank you, Headmaster," Professor Umbridge simpered, "for those kind words of welcome."**

**Her voice was high-pitched, breathy and little-girlish and, again, Harry felt a powerful rush of dislike that he could not explain to himself; all he knew was that he loathed everything about her, from her stupid voice to her fluffy pink cardigan. She gave another little throat-clearing cough ("hem, hem") and continued.**

"**Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!" She smiled, revealing very pointed teeth. "And to see such happy little faces looking up at me!"**

**Harry glanced around. None of the faces he could see looked happy. On the contrary, they all looked rather taken-aback at being addressed as though they were five years old.**

"**I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"**

**Students exchanged looks at this; some of them were barely concealing grins.**

"**I'll be her friend as long as I don't have to borrow that cardigan," Parvati whispered to Lavender, and both of them lapsed into silent giggles.**

Hermione looked like she was torn between the desire not to act like the two and the desire to laugh.

**Professor Umbridge cleared her throat again ("hem, hem"), but when she continued, some of the breathiness had vanished from her voice. She sounded much more businesslike and now her words had a dull learned-by-heart sound to them.**

"**The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them for ever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."**

**Professor Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back to her. Professor McGonagall's dark eyebrows had contracted so that she looked positively hawklike, and Harry distinctly saw her exchange a significant glance with Professor Sprout as Umbridge gave another little "hem, hem" and went on with her speech.**

"**Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation…"**

**Harry found his attentiveness ebbing, as though his brain was slipping in and out of tune. The quiet that always filled the Hall when Dumbledore was speaking was breaking up as students put their heads together, whispering and giggling. Over on the Ravenclaw table Cho Chang was chatting animatedly with her friends. A few seats along from Cho, Luna Lovegood had ****got out The Quibbler again. **

**Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table Ernie Macmillan was one of the few still staring at Professor Umbridge, but he was glassy-eyed and Harry was sure he was only pretending to listen in an attempt to live up to the new prefect's badge gleaming on his chest.**

This seemed to lighten the mood a bit.

**Professor Umbridge did not seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. Harry had the impression that a full-scale riot could have broken out under her nose and she would have ploughed on with her speech. The teachers, however, were still listening very attentively, and Hermione seemed to be drinking in every word Umbridge spoke, though, judging by her expression, they were not at all to her taste.**

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't like where this seemed to be going.

"… **because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."**

**She sat down. Dumbledore clapped. The staff followed his lead, though Harry noticed that several of them brought their hands together only once or twice before stopping. A few students joined in, but most had been taken unawares by the end of the speech, not having listened to more than a few words of it, and before they could start applauding properly, Dumbledore had stood up again.**

"**Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating," he said, bowing to her. "Now, as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held…"**

"**Yes, it certainly was illuminating," said Hermione in a low voice.**

"**You're not telling me you enjoyed it?" Ron said quietly, turning a glazed face towards Hermione. "That was about the dullest speech I've ever heard, and I grew up with Percy."**

The mood became icy again.

"**I said illuminating, not enjoyable," said Hermione. "It explained a lot.'**

"**Did it?" said Harry in surprise. "Sounded like a load of waffle to me."**

"**There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle," said Hermione grimly.**

"**Was there?" said Ron blankly.**

"**How about: 'progress for progress's sake must be discouraged'? How about: 'pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited'?"**

"**Well, what does that mean?" said Ron impatiently.**

"**I'll tell you what it means," said Hermione through gritted teeth. "It means the Ministry's interfering at Hogwarts."**

"Oh." Ron looked shocked.

**There was a great clattering and banging all around them; Dumbledore had obviously just dismissed the school, because everyone was standing up ready to leave the Hall. Hermione jumped up, looking flustered.**

**"Ron, we're supposed to show the first-years where to go!"**

"**Oh yeah," said Ron, who had obviously forgotten. "Hey - hey, you lot! Midgets!"**

Some people laughed at that.

"**Ron!"**

"**Well, they are, they're titchy…"**

"**I know, but you can't call them midgets! - First-years!" Hermione called commandingly along the table. "This way, please!"**

**A group of new students walked shyly up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, all of them trying hard not to lead the group. They did indeed seem very small; Harry was sure he had not appeared that young when he had arrived here. **

"Oh you where, ickle Harrykins", the twins chorused.

Harry threw pillow at them.

**He grinned at them. A blond boy next to Euan Abercrombie looked petrified; he nudged Euan and whispered something in his ear.**

**Euan Abercrombie looked equally frightened and stole a horrified look at Harry, who felt the grin slide off his face like Stinksap.**

"**See you later," he said dully to Ron and Hermione and he made his way out of the Great Hall alone, doing everything he could to ignore more whispering, staring and pointing as he passed.**

**He kept his eyes fixed ahead as he wove his way through the crowd in the Entrance Hall, then he hurried up the marble staircase, took a couple of concealed short cuts and had soon left most of the crowds behind.**

**He had been stupid not to expect this, he thought angrily as he walked through the much emptier upstairs corridors. Of course everyone was staring at him; he had emerged from the Triwizard maze two months previously clutching the dead body of a fellow student and claiming to have seen Lord Voldemort return to power. There had not been time last term to explain himself before they'd all had to go home - even if he had felt up to giving the whole school a detailed account of the terrible events in that graveyard.**

**Harry had reached the end of the corridor to the Gryffindor common room and come to a halt in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady before he realized that he did not know the new password.**

"Harry", Mrs. Weasley sighed.

"**Er…" he said glumly, staring up at the Fat Lady, who smoothed the folds of her pink satin dress and looked sternly back at him.**

"**No password, no entrance," she said loftily.**

"**Harry, I know it!" Someone panted up behind him and he turned to see Neville jogging towards him. "Guess what it is? I'm actually going to be able to remember it for once -" He waved the stunted little cactus he had shown them on the train. "Mimbulus mimbletonia!"**

Neville looked relived. Maybe he would be able to remember this one.

"**Correct," said the Fat Lady, and her portrait swung open towards them like a door, revealing a circular hole in the wall behind, through which Harry and Neville now climbed.**

**The Gryffindor common room looked as welcoming as ever, a cozy circular tower room full of dilapidated squashy armchairs and rickety old tables. A fire was crackling merrily in the grate and a few people were warming their hands by it before going up to their dormitories; on the other side of the room Fred and George Weasley were pinning something up on the notice board.**

**Harry waved goodnight to them and headed straight for the door to the boys' dormitories; he was not in much of a mood for talking at the moment. Neville followed him.**

**Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan had reached the dormitory first and were in the process of covering the walls beside their beds with posters and photographs. They had been talking as Harry pushed open the door but stopped abruptly the moment they saw him. Harry wondered whether they had been talking about him, then whether he was being paranoid.**

Mrs. Weasley and Sirius looked murderous. Everyone else had a look of pity on their face, except for Snape, who tried his hardest to hide it.

"**Hi," he said, moving across to his own trunk and opening it.**

"**Hey, Harry," said Dean, who was putting on a pair of pajamas in the West Ham colors. "Good holiday?"**

"**Not bad," muttered Harry, as a true account of his holiday would have taken most of the night to relate and he could not face it. "You?"**

"**Yeah, it was okay," chuckled Dean. "Better than Seamus's, anyway, he was just telling me."**

"**Why, what happened, Seamus?" Neville asked as he placed his Mimbulus mimbletonia tenderly on his bedside cabinet.**

**Seamus did not answer immediately; he was making rather a meal of ensuring that his poster of the Kenmare Kestrels Quidditch team was quite straight. Then he said, with his back still turned to Harry, "My mum didn't want me to come back."**

"She isn't...", Hermione said wide eyed.

"**What?" said Harry, pausing in the act of pulling off his robes.**

"**She didn't want me to come back to Hogwarts."**

**Seamus turned away from his poster and pulled his own pajamas out of his trunk, still not looking at Harry.**

"**But - why?" said Harry, astonished. He knew that Seamus's mother was a witch and could not understand, therefore, why she should have come over so Dursleyish.**

**Seamus did not answer until he had finished buttoning his pajamas.**

"**Well," he said in a measured voice, "I suppose… because of you."**

"**What d'you mean?" said Harry quickly.**

**His heart was beating rather fast. He felt vaguely as though something was closing in on him.**

"**Well," said Seamus again, still avoiding Harry's eye, "she… er… well, it's not just you, it's Dumbledore, too…"**

"**She believes the Daily Prophet?" said Harry. "She thinks I'm a liar and Dumbledore's an old fool?"**

**Seamus looked up at him.**

"**Yeah, something like that."**

There was a lot of swearing heard.

**Harry said nothing. He threw his wand down on to his bedside table, pulled off his robes, stuffed them angrily into his trunk and pulled on his pajamas. He was sick of it; sick of being the person who was stared at and talked about all the time. If any of them knew, if any of them had the faintest idea what it felt like to be the one all these things had happened to…**

Snape couldn't believe his ears. _Maybe the boy was more like Lily than he thought..._

_But no. No, he must me misreading the signs._

**Mrs. Finnigan had no idea, the stupid woman, he thought savagely.**

**He got into bed and made to pull the hangings closed around him, but before he could do so, Seamus said, "Look… what did happen that night when… you know, when… with Cedric Diggory and all?"**

"I can't believe the nerve of that boy!", McGonagall screamed, to everyone's surprise. She looked plain furious.

**Seamus sounded nervous and eager at the same time. Dean, who had been bending over his trunk trying to retrieve a slipper, went oddly still and Harry knew he was listening hard.**

"**What are you asking me for?" Harry retorted. "Just read the Daily Prophet like your mother, why don't you? That'll tell you all you need to know."**

"**Don't you have a go at my mother," Seamus snapped.**

"**I'll have a go at anyone who calls me a liar," said Harry.**

"**Don't talk to me like that!"**

"**I'll talk to you how I want," said Harry, his temper rising so fast he snatched his wand back from his bedside table. "If you've got a problem sharing a dormitory with me, go and ask McGonagall if you can be moved… stop your mummy worrying -"**

"**Leave my mother out of this, Potter!"**

"**What's going on?"**

**Ron had appeared in the doorway. His wide eyes traveled from Harry, who was kneeling on his bed with his wand pointing at Seamus, to Seamus, who was standing there with his fists raised.**

"**He's having a go at my mother!" Seamus yelled.**

"**What?" said Ron. "Harry wouldn't do that — we met your mother, we liked her…"**

"**That's before she started believing every word the stinking Daily Prophet writes about me!" said Harry at the top of his voice.**

"**Oh," said Ron, comprehension dawning across his freckled face. "Oh… right."**

"**You know what?" said Seamus heatedly, casting Harry a venomous look. "He's right, I don't want to share a dormitory with him any more, he's a madman."**

"**That's out of order, Seamus," said Ron, whose ears were starting to glow red - always a danger sign.**

"**Out of order, am I?" shouted Seamus, who in contrast with Ron was tuning paler. "You believe all the rubbish he's come out with about You-Know-Who, do you, you reckon he's telling the truth?"**

"OF course", Ron said and Harry felt a warm feeling spreading through his chest.

"**Yeah, I do!" said Ron angrily.**

"**Then you're mad, too," said Seamus in disgust.**

"**Yeah? Well, unfortunately for you, pal, I'm also a prefect!" said Ron, jabbing himself in the chest with a finger. "So unless you want detention, watch your mouth!"**

**Seamus looked for a few seconds as though detention would be a reasonable price to pay to say what was going through his mind; but with a noise of contempt he turned **

**on his heel, vaulted into bed and pulled the hangings shut with such violence that they were ripped from the bed and fell in a dusty pile to the floor. Ron glared at Seamus, then looked at Dean and Neville.**

"**Anyone else's parents got a problem with Harry?" he said aggressively.**

"**My parents are Muggles, mate," said Dean, shrugging. "They don't know nothing about no deaths at Hogwarts, because I'm not stupid enough to tell them."**

"Did you tell your parents?", Ginny asked Hermione curiously.

"No. They'd freak out."

"**You don't know my mother, she'd weasel anything out of anyone!" Seamus snapped at him.**

**"Anyway your parents don't get the Daily Prophet. They don't know our Headmaster's been sacked from the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards because he's losing his marbles -"**

"**My gran says that's rubbish," piped up Neville. "She says it's the Daily Prophet that's going downhill, not Dumbledore. She's cancelled our subscription. We believe Harry" said Neville simply. **

"Thanks!", harry smiled at him.

Neville blushed a little. He was happy that he made Harry feel better.

**He climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin, looking owlishly over them at Seamus. "My gran's always said You-Know-Who would come back one day. She says if Dumbledore says he's back, he's back."**

**Harry felt a rush of gratitude towards Neville. Nobody else said anything. Seamus got out his wand, repaired the bed hangings and vanished behind them. Dean got into bed, rolled over and fell silent. Neville, who appeared to have nothing more to say either, was gazing fondly at his moonlit cactus.**

**Harry lay back on his pillows while Ron bustled around the next bed, putting his things away. He felt shaken by the argument with Seamus, whom he had always liked very much. How many more people were going to suggest that he was lying, or unhinged?**

**Had Dumbledore suffered like this all summer, as first the Wizengamot, then the International Confederation of Wizards had thrown him from their ranks? Was it anger at Harry, perhaps, that had stopped Dumbledore getting in touch with him for months? **

"Oh no my dear boy. I don't care...as long as they don't take away my Chocolatfrog card. (A/N This sounds a little wrong...well, I'm sorry.)

**The two of them were in this together, after all; Dumbledore had believed Harry, announced his version of events to the whole school and then to the wider wizarding community. Anyone who thought Harry was a liar had to think that Dumbledore was, too, or else that Dumbledore had been hoodwinked…**

**They'll know we're right in the end, thought Harry miserably, as Ron got into bed and extinguished the last candle in the dormitory. But he wondered how many more attacks like Seamus's he would have to endure before that time came.**

"Well...I think we could read one more chapter before we all go to bed", Mrs. Weasley announced.

**So. That's it. I hope you liked it. PLEASE review. Even if it's just a short review. Also, if you have an idea who else should appear in the later chapters ore something else that would fit into the story, then just review or PM me.**


	7. Professor Umbridge

**So. Here is another chapter. I'm very sorry, that I didn't update for so long, but 10th grade is stressful …**

**Also I want to announce, that my story was put into Cwams community : **.net/community/Harry_Potter_Characters_read_the_Harry_Potter_books/85285/99/1/1/

**So if you are interested n more 'HP Characters read the books' stories and didn't know this community yet...you should look there :D**

**One more thing before I start: As some people have commented on my spelling and Grammar :___I am _NOT_ a native English speaker :D My native tongue is German, and so writing in English is a challenge for me._**

**The Harry Potter Universe doesn't belong to me**

"You know, I think Harry should read now", Ginny spoke up. "I mean, this is a book about his life, and he hasn't read a single chapter yet."

everyone agreed, and Harry took the book out of Ginny's hands, hesitating a bit. He wasn't sure he liked reading his thoughts out loud to everybody.

**Professor Umbridge, **Harry started

**Seamus dressed at top speed next morning and left the dormitory before Harry had even put on his socks.**

"Git", Ron said.

No one bothered to scold him, as everyone was thinking the same thing.

"**Does he think he'll turn into a nutter if he stays in a room with me too long?" asked Harry loudly, as the hem of Seamus's robes whipped out of sight.**

"**Don't worry about it, Harry," Dean muttered, hoisting his schoolbag on to his shoulder, "he's just…"**

" A stupid-"

"-jealous-"

"-blinded-"

"- git", the twins finished.

Harry felt very grateful for them. It was relieving to now, that at least _some _people believed him.

**But apparently he was unable to say exactly what Seamus was, and after a slightly awkward pause followed him out of the room.**

**Neville and Ron both gave Harry an it's-his-problem-not-yours look, but Harry was not much consoled. How much more of this would he have to take?**

Dumbledore sighed. He knew the boy probably would have to take in much more than he could imagine right now.

"**What's the matter?" asked Hermione five minutes later, catching up with Harry and Ron halfway across the common room as they all headed towards breakfast. "You look absolutely - Oh for heaven's sake."**

Fred and George shot Hermione a meaningful look and she bushed scarlet.

**She was staring at the common-room notice board, where a large new sign had been put up.**

**GALLONS OF GALLEONS.**

**Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings? Like to earn a little extra gold? Contact Fred and George Weasley, Gryffindor common room, for simple, part-time, virtually painless jobs. (We regret that all work is undertaken at applicant's own risk.)**

"ARE YOU INSANE?", Mrs. Weasley shouted, "YOU CAN'T ASK FOR OTHER STUDENT'S TO TEST YOUR STUPID...YOUR STUPID STUFF!"

The twins were very pale, and looked at the floor, as if there was no more interesting thing in the world.

"Molly, they haven't done anything...yet."

Mrs. Weasley only shot her husband a dark look.

**"They are the limit," said Hermione grimly, taking down the sign, which Fred and George had pinned up over a poster giving the date of the first Hogsmeade weekend in October. "We'll have to talk to them, Ron."**

**Ron looked positively alarmed.**

"**Why?"**

"You're a prefect, for heavens sake Ron!", Hermione exclaimed.

The twins chuckled. The knew that Ron would never even try to boss them around, no matter if he was a prefect or not. He didn't want to be their next target.

"**Because we're prefects!" said Hermione, as they climbed out through the portrait hole. "It's up to us to stop this kind of thing!"**

**Ron said nothing; Harry could tell from his glum expression that the prospect of stopping Fred and George doing exactly what they liked was not one he found inviting.**

"**Anyway, what's up, Harry?" Hermione continued, as they walked down a flight of stairs lined with portraits of old witches and wizards, all of whom ignored them, being engrossed in their own conversation. **

"More likely listening to conversations of students, and then gossiping around", Bill chuckled.

**"You look really angry about something."**

"**Seamus reckons Harry's lying about You-Know-Who," said Ron succinctly, when Harry did not respond.**

**Hermione, who Harry had expected to react angrily on his behalf, sighed.**

"**Yes, Lavender thinks so too," she said gloomily.**

Everyone's look darked a bit. This was not going to be a fun year for Harry.

**"Been having a nice little chat with her about whet her or not I'm a lying, attention-seeking prat, have you?" Harry said loudly.**

"Harry!", Mrs. Weasley shook her head at him disapproving.

Harry knew that the way he was acting was very unfair, but he couldn't say anything. Why didn't anyone believe him?

"**No," said Hermione calmly. "I told her to keep her big fat mouth shut about you, actually. And it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down our throats, Harry, because in case you haven't noticed, Ron and I are on your side."**

"Sorry", Harry muttered. Hermione sighed and smiled at him. She knew that Harry was having a hard time in the book.

**There was a short pause.**

"**Sorry," said Harry in a low voice.**

"**That's quite all right," said Hermione with dignity… Then she shook her head. "Don't you remember what Dumbledore said at the last end-of-term feast?"**

**Harry and Ron both looked at her blankly and Hermione sighed again.**

"**About You-Know-Who. He said his 'gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust —'"**

Dumbledore sighed. It seemed that Voldemort was having success with that again.

"**How do you remember stuff like that?" asked Ron, looking at her in admiration.**

"**I listen, Ron," said Hermione, with a touch of asperity.**

"No Hermione. You're just the smartest witch of the school", Ron said. After a moment he realised what he just said and blushed.

Hermione was a little pink in the cheeks, too, but also looked pleased.

**"So do I, but I still couldn't tell you exactly what -"**

"**The point," Hermione pressed on loudly, "is that this sort of thing is exactly what Dumbledore was talking about. You-Know-Who's only been back two months and we've already started fighting among ourselves. And the Sorting Hats warning was the same: stand together, be united —"**

"**And Harry got it right last night," retorted Ron. "If that means we're supposed to get matey with the Slytherins-fat chance."**

"**Well, I think it's a pity we're not trying for a bit of inter-house unity," said Hermione crossly.**

Professor McGonnagall shook her head in slight bemusement. This girl really was one of the smartest students she had ever taught.

**They had reached the foot of the marble staircase. A line of fourth-year Ravenclaws was crossing the Entrance Hall; they caught sight of Harry and hurried to form a tighter group, as though frightened he might attack stragglers.**

The twins laughed, but everybody else looked solemn.

"**Yeah, we really ought to be trying to make friends with people like that," said Harry sarcastically.**

**They followed the Ravenclaws into the Great Hall, all looking instinctively at the staff table as they entered. Professor Grubbly-Plank was chatting to Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, and Hagrid was once again conspicuous only by his absence. The enchanted ceiling above them echoed Harry's mood; it was a miserable rain-cloud grey.**

"**Dumbledore didn't even mention how long that Grubbly-Plank woman's staying," he said, as they made their way across to the Gryffindor table.**

"**Maybe…" said Hermione thoughtfully.**

"**What?" said both Harry and Ron together.**

**"Well… maybe he didn't want to draw attention to Hagrid not being here**."

"**What d'you mean, draw attention to it?" said Ron, half-laughing. "How could we not notice?"**

"Well Mr. Weasley, not everybody is so obsessed with Hagrid as you lot are", Snape sneered. He couldn't believe how dumb this boy was.

**Before Hermione could answer, a tall black girl with long braided hair had marched up to Harry.**

"**Hi, Angelina."**

"**Hi," she said briskly, "good summer?" And without waiting for an answer, "Listen, I've been made Gryffindor Quidditch Captain."**

"**Nice one," said Harry, grinning at her; he suspected Angelina's pep talks might not be as longwinded as Oliver Wood's had been, which could only be an improvement.**

"**Yeah, well, we need a new Keeper now Oliver's left. Tryouts are on Friday at five o'clock and I want the whole team there, all right? Then we can see how the new personnel fit in."**

"**Okay," said Harry.**

**Angelina smiled at him and departed.**

"**I'd forgotten Wood had left," said Hermione vaguely as she sat down beside Ron and pulled a plate of toast towards her. "I suppose that will make quite a difference to the team?"**

"**I s'pose," said Harry, taking the bench opposite. "He was a good Keeper…"**

"**Still, it won't hurt to have some new blood, will it?" said Ron.**

"Ohhhhhhh...is ickle Ronniekins going to try out for the team?" The twins laughed.

Ron threw a pillow at them in response.

**With a whoosh and a clatter, hundreds of owls came soaring in through the upper windows. They descended all over the Hall, bringing letters and packages to their owners and showering the breakfasters with droplets of water; it was clearly raining hard outside. Hedwig was nowhere to be seen, but Harry was hardly surprised; his only correspondent was Sirius, and he doubted Sirius would have anything new to tell him after only twenty-four hours apart. Hermione, however, had to move her orange juice aside quickly to make way for a large damp barn owl bearing a sodden Daily Prophet in its beak.**

"**What are you still getting that for?" said Harry irritably, thinking of Seamus as Hermione placed a Knut in the leather pouch on the owl's leg and it took off again. "I'm not bothering… load of rubbish."**

"**It's best to know what the enemy is saying," said Hermione darkly, and she unfurled the newspaper and disappeared behind it, not emerging until Harry and Ron had finished eating.**

Everybody nodded understanding. She did have a point there.

**"Nothing," she said simply, rolling up the newspaper and laying it down by her plate. "Nothing about you or Dumbledore or anything."**

**Professor McGonagall was now moving along the table handing out schedules.**

**"Look at today!" groaned Ron. "History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and double Defense Against the Dark Arts… Binns, Snape, Trelawney and that Umbridge woman all in one day!**

Harry and Ron groaned. How where they going to live through that?

**I wish Fred and George'd hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted**…"

"**Do mine ears deceive me?'" said Fred, arriving with George and squeezing on to the bench beside Harry. "Hogwarts prefects surely don't wish to skive off lessons?"**

"**Look what we've got today," said Ron grumpily, shoving his timetable under Fred's nose. "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."**

"**Fair point, little bro," said Fred, scanning the column. "You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."**

"**Why's it cheap?" said Ron suspiciously.**

"Probably because it isn't really safe to use yet", Neville suggested.

"**Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven't got an antidote yet," said George, helping himself to a kipper.**

"**Cheers," said Ron moodily, pocketing his timetable, "but I think I'll take the lessons."**

"**And speaking of your Skiving Snackboxes," said Hermione, eyeing Fred and George beadily, "you can't advertise for testers on the Gryffindor noticeboard."**

"**Says who?" said George, looking astonished.**

"**Says me," said Hermione. "And Ron."**

"**Leave me out of it," said Ron hastily.**

**Hermione glared at him. Fred and George sniggered.**

"**You'll be singing a different tune soon enough, Hermione," said Fred, thickly buttering a crumpet. "You're starting your fifth year, you'll be begging us for a Snackbox before long."**

"Not going to happen," Harry and Ron laughed, knowing their friend to well.

"Wanna bet?", the twins asked. "Three galleons that she will use them at one time this year?"

"Deal."

"**And why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snackbox?" asked Hermione.**

"**Fifth year's OWL year," said George.**

"**So?"**

"**So you've got your exams coming up, haven't you? They'll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they'll be rubbed raw," said Fred with satisfaction.**

"**Half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to Owls," said George happily. "Tears and tantrums… Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint…"**

"**Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d'you remember?" said Fred reminiscently.**

"**That's 'cause you put Bulbadox powder in his pyjamas," said George.**

**"Oh yeah," said Fred, grinning. "I'd forgotten… hard to keep track sometimes, isn't it?"**

All of the adults shook their heads, though some of their mouths twitched a little bit.

"**Anyway, it's a nightmare of a year, the fifth," said George. "If you care about exam results, anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our spirits up somehow."**

"Yes you did. But you also only got three OWL's each", Mrs. Weasley grumbled.

"**Yeah… you got, what was it, three OWL's each?" said Ron.**

"**Yep," said Fred unconcernedly. "But we feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement."**

"**We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back for our seventh year," said George brightly, "now that we've got-"**

**He broke off at a warning look from Harry, who knew George had been about to mention the Triwizard winnings he had given them.**

"YOU DID WHAT?", Hermione screeched. Mrs. Weasley looked as if Ginny had told her she wanted to become a table dancer, and Harry looked down.

"Well...", he said slowly, " I thought we'd need some good laughs, now that Voldemort is back . And I didn't want to have it anyway."

"But...how could you two take it, you should have declined!", Mrs, Weasley looked at her sons experatly.

"I threatened to hex them if they didn't", Harry mumbled.

Hermione and Mrs. Weasley still looked angry, while the other adults merely looked impressed.

"**- now that we've got our OWL's," George said hastily. "I mean, do we really need NEWTs? But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."**

There was an uncomfortable silence, so Harry quickly read on.

**"We're not going to waste our last year here, though," said Fred, looking affectionately around at the Great Hall. "We're going to use it to do a bit of market research, find out exactly what the average Hogwarts student requires from a joke shop, carefully evaluate the results of our research, then produce products to fit the demand."**

"**But where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop?" Hermione asked sceptically. "You're going to need all the ingredients and materials - and premises too, I suppose…"**

**Harry did not look at the twins. His face felt hot; he deliberately dropped his fork and dived down to retrieve it. He heard Fred say overhead, "Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies, Hermione. C'mon, George, if we get there early we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology."**

**Harry emerged from under the table to see Fred and George walking away, each carrying a stack of toast.**

"**What did that mean?" said Hermione, looking from Harry to Ron. "'Ask us no questions… ' Does that mean they've already got some gold to start a joke shop?"**

**"You know, I've been wondering about that," said Ron, his brow furrowed. "They bought me a new set of dress robes this summer and I couldn't understand where they got the Galleons…"**

Harry felt a blush creeping up his cheeks.

"You told them to buy me a new one, didn't you?"

"Umm..."

"Oh whatever", Ron said, turning away. He hated feeling poor, and now Harry had proven it again, by making the twins buy him a new set of dress robes, because they couldn't afford proper ones.

**Harry decided it was time to steer the conversation out of these dangerous waters.**

"**D'you reckon it's true this year's going to be really tough? Because of the exams?"**

**"Oh, yeah," said Ron. "Bound to be, isn't it? OWL's are really important, affect the jobs you can apply for and everything. We get career advice, too, later this year, Bill told me. So you can choose what NEWTs you want to do next year."**

"**D'you know what you want to do after Hogwarts?" Harry asked the other two, as they left the Great Hall shortly afterwards and set off towards their History of Magic classroom.**

"**Not really," said Ron slowly. "Except… well…" He looked slightly sheepish.**

"**What?" Harry urged him.**

'"**Well, it'd be cool to be an Auror,'" said Ron in an off-hand voice.**

"**Yeah, it would," said Harry fervently.**

"**But they're, like, the elite," said Ron. "You've got to be really good. What about you, Hermione?"**

"**I don't know," she said. "I think I'd like to do something really worthwhile."**

"**An Auror's worthwhile!" said Harry.**

"**Yes, it is, but it's not the only worthwhile thing," said Hermione thoughtfully, "I mean, if I could take SPEW further…"**

**Harry and Ron carefully avoided looking at each other.**

Hermione looked angry. She knew she would make a change with S.P.E.W. someday, even if it was the last thing she was going to do.

**History of Magic was by common consent the most boring subject ever devised by wizardkind. Professor Binns, their ghost teacher, had a wheezy, droning voice that was almost guaranteed to cause severe drowsiness within ten minutes, five in warm weather. He never varied the form of their lessons, but lectured them without pausing while they took notes, or rather, gazed sleepily into space. Harry and Ron had so far managed to scrape passes in this subject only by copying Hermione's notes before exams; she alone seemed able to resist the soporific power of Binns's voice.**

"Nah, Moony here was able to stay awake, too", Sirius said, grinning at his friend.

**Today, they suffered an hour and a half's droning on the subject of giant wars. Harry heard just enough within the first ten minutes to appreciate dimly that in another teacher's hands this subject might have been mildly interesting, but then his brain disengaged, and he spent the remaining hour and twenty minutes playing hangman on a corner of his parchment with Ron, while Hermione shot them filthy looks out of the corner of her eye.**

"**How would it be," she asked them coldly, as they left the classroom for break (Binns drifting away through the blackboard), "if I refused to lend you my notes this year?"**

"**We'd fail our OWL," said Ron. "If you want that on your conscience, Hermione…"**

"**Well, you'd deserve it," she snapped. "You don't even try to listen to him, do you?"**

"**We do try," said Ron. "We just haven't got your brains or your memory or your concentration - you're just cleverer than we are - is it nice to rub it in?"**

"**Oh, don't give me that rubbish," said Hermione, but she looked slightly mollified as she led the way out into the damp courtyard.**

**A fine misty drizzle was falling, so that the people standing in huddles around the edges of the yard looked blurred at the edges. Harry, Ron and Hermione chose a secluded corner under a heavily dripping balcony, turning up the collars of their robes against the chilly September air and talking about what Snape was likely to set them in the first lesson of the year. They had got as far as agreeing that it was likely to be something extremely difficult, just to catch them off guard after a two-month holiday, when someone walked around the corner towards them.**

"**Hello, Harry!"**

**It was Cho Chang and, what was more, she was on her own again. **

"Uhhhhh", the twins chorused.

Ginny acted as if she didn't hear anything and harry began to wish he hadn't agreed to read this chapter.

**This was most unusual: Cho was almost always surrounded by a gang of giggling girls; Harry remembered the agony of trying to get her by herself to ask her to the Yule Ball.**

"**Hi," said Harry, feeling his face grow hot. At least you're not covered in Stinksap this time, he told himself. Cho seemed to be thinking along the same lines.**

"**You got that stuff off, then?"**

"**Yeah," said Harry, trying to grin as though the memory of their last meeting was funny as opposed to mortifying. "So, did you… er… have a good summer?"**

**The moment he had said this he wished he hadn't - Cedric had been Cho's boyfriend and the memory of his death must have affected her holiday almost as badly as it had affected Harry's.**

"Smooth", Bill grinned. He knew this wasn't funny, at least the subject of Cedric's death, but Harry liking Cho certainty was.

**Something seemed to tauten in her face, but she said, "Oh, it was all right, you know…"**

"**Is that a Tornados badge?" Ron demanded suddenly, pointing to the front of Cho's robes, where a sky-blue badge emblazoned with a double gold 'T' was pinned. "You don't support them, do you?"**

"RON!", Hermione demanded, while Ginny was extremely grateful.

"**Yeah, I do," said Cho.**

"**Have you always supported them, or just since they started winning the league?" said Ron, in what Harry considered an unnecessarily accusatory tone of voice.**

Hermione rolled her eyes. Why, for heavens sake couldn't this boy just shut up for one moment?

"**I've supported them since I was six," said Cho coolly. "Anyway… see you, Harry."**

**She walked away. Hermione waited until Cho was halfway across the courtyard before rounding on Ron.**

"**You are so tactless!"**

"**What? I only asked her if -"**

"**Couldn't you tell she wanted to talk to Harry on her own?"**

"**So? She could've done, I wasn't stopping -"**

"**Why on earth were you attacking her about her Quidditch team?"**

"**Attacking? I wasn't attacking her, I was only -"**

"**Who cares if she supports the Tornados?"**

"**Oh, come on, half the people you see wearing those badges only bought them last season -"**

"**But what does it matter!"**

**"It means they're not real fans, they're just jumping on the bandwagon -"**

Some people chuckled. This was just so...typical for them, to bicker around like that.

"**That's the bell," said Harry dully, because Ron and Hermione were bickering too loudly to hear it. They did not stop arguing all the way down to Snape's dungeon, which gave Harry plenty of time to reflect that between Neville and Ron he would be lucky ever to have two minutes of conversation with Cho that he could look back on without wanting to leave the country.**

Now everyone, even Neville and Ron burst out laughing.

**And yet, he thought, as they joined the queue lining up outside Snape's classroom door, she had chosen to come and talk to him, hadn't she? She had been Cedric's girlfriend; she could easily have hated Harry for coming out of the Triwizard maze alive when Cedric had died, yet she was talking to him in a perfectly friendly way, not as though she thought him mad, or a liar, or in some horrible way responsible for Cedric's death… yes, she had definitely chosen to come and talk to him, and that made the second time in two days… and at this thought, Harry's spirits rose.**

**Even the ominous sound of Snape's dungeon door creaking open did not puncture the small, hopeful bubble that seemed to have swelled in his chest. He filed into the classroom behind Ron and Hermione and followed them to their usual table at the back, where he sat down between Ron and Hermione and ignored the huffy, irritable noises now issuing from both of them.**

"**Settle down," said Snape coldly, shutting the door behind him.**

**There was no real need for the call to order; the moment the class had heard the door close, quiet had fallen and all fidgeting stopped. Snape's mere presence was usually enough to ensure a class's silence.**

Snape smiled smugly at this. He knew he could keep a class quiet.

**"Before we begin today's lesson," said Snape, sweeping over to his desk and staring around at them all, "I think it appropriate to remind you that next June you will be sitting an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions. Moronic though some of this class undoubtedly are, I expect you to scrape an 'Acceptable' in your OWL, or suffer my… displeasure."**

**His gaze lingered this time on Neville, who gulped.**

Some shot Snape a dirty look. This was no way of teaching.

"**After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me," Snape went on. "I take only the very best into my NEWT Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying goodbye."**

**His eyes rested on Harry and his lip curled. Harry glared back, feeling a grim pleasure at the idea that he would be able to give up Potions after fifth year.**

"Not if you want to become an Auror Harry", Mr. Weasley laughed slightly, causing harry to pale.

"**But we have another year to go before that happy moment of farewell," said Snape softly, "so, whether or not you are intending to attempt NEWT, I advise all of you to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high pass level I have come to expect from my OWL students.**

"**Today we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level: the Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and soothe agitation. Be warned: if you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay close attention to what you are doing." On Harry's left, Hermione sat up a little straighter, her expression one of utmost attention. "The ingredients and method -" Snape flicked his wand "- are on the blackboard -" (they appeared there) "- you will find everything you need —" he flicked his wand again "- in the store cupboard —" (the door of the said cupboard sprang open) "- you have an hour and a half… start."**

**Just as Harry, Ron and Hermione had predicted, Snape could hardly have set them a more difficult, fiddly potion. The ingredients had to be added to the cauldron in precisely the right order and quantities; the mixture had to be stirred exactly the right number of times, firstly in clockwise, then in anti-clockwise directions; the heat of the flames on which it was simmering had to be lowered to exactly the right level for a specific number of minutes before the final ingredient was added.**

"**A light silver vapour should now be rising from your potion," called Snape, with ten minutes left to go.**

**Harry, who was sweating profusely, looked desperately around the dungeon. His own cauldron was issuing copious amounts of dark grey steam; Ron's was spitting green sparks. Seamus was feverishly prodding the flames at the base of his cauldron with the tip of his wand, as they seemed to be going out. The surface of Hermione's potion, however, was a shimmering mist of silver vapour, and as Snape swept by he looked down his hooked nose at it without comment, which meant he could find nothing to criticize.**

Dumbledore shook his head. Why couldn't Snape just admit that the girl#s potion was good?

**At Harry's cauldron, however, Snape stopped, and looked down at it with a horrible smirk on his face.**

"**Potter, what is this supposed to be?"**

**The Slytherins at the front of the class all looked up eagerly; they loved hearing Snape taunt Harry.**

"**The Draught of Peace," said Harry tensely.**

"**Tell me, Potter," said Snape softly, "can you read?"**

"Tell me Snivelly, can you use Shampoo?", Sirius asked angrily.

**Draco Malfoy laughed.**

"**Yes, I can," said Harry, his fingers clenched tightly around his wand.**

"**Read the third line of the instructions for me, Potter."**

**Harry squinted at the blackboard; it was not easy to make out the instructions through the haze of multi-colored steam now filling the dungeon.**

"'**Add powdered moonstone, stir three times counter-clockwise, allow to simmer for seven minutes then add two drops of syrup of hellebore.'"**

**His heart sank. He had not added syrup of hellebore, but had proceeded straight to the fourth line of the instructions after allowing his potion to simmer for seven minutes.**

"**Did you do everything on the third line, Potter?"**

"**No," said Harry very quietly.**

**"I beg your pardon?"**

"**No," said Harry, more loudly. "I forgot the hellebore."**

"**I know you did, Potter, which means that this mess is utterly worthless. Evanesco."**

Professor McGonnagall looked at Snape angry, her mouth just a thin line.

**The contents of Harry's potion vanished; he was left standing foolishly beside an empty cauldron.**

"**Those of you who have managed to read the instructions, fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name and bring it up to my desk for testing," said Snape.**

"**Homework: twelve inches of parchment on the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion ****making, to be handed in on Thursday."**

**While everyone around him filled their flagons, Harry cleared away his things, seething. His potion had been no worse than Ron's, which was now giving off a foul odour of bad eggs; or Neville's, which had achieved the consistency of just-mixed cement and which Neville was now having to gouge out of his cauldron; yet it was he, Harry, who would be receiving zero marks for the day's work. He stuffed his wand back into his bag and slumped down on to his seat, watching everyone else march up to Snape's desk with filled and corked flagons. When at long last the bell rang, Harry was first out of the dungeon and had already started his lunch by the time Ron and Hermione joined him in the Great Hall. The ceiling had turned an even murkier grey during the morning. Rain was lashing the high windows.**

"**That was really unfair," said Hermione consolingly, sitting down next to Harry and helping herself to shepherd's pie. "Your potion wasn't nearly as bad as Goyle's; when he put it in his flagon the whole thing shattered and set his robes on fire."**

"**Yeah, well," said Harry, glowering at his plate, "since when has Snape ever been fair to me?"**

"Come on Harry, she is only trying to cheer you up", Ginny said, disapproving.

"I know that", he responded, a little hasher than intended.

**Neither of the others answered; all three of them knew that Snape and Harry's mutual enmity had been absolute from the moment Harry had set foot in Hogwarts.**

"More from the moment he met James on the train", Sirius muttered, only for Lupin to hear.

"**I did think he might be a bit better this year," said Hermione in a disappointed voice. "I mean… you know…" she looked around carefully; there were half a dozen empty seats on either side of them and nobody was passing the table "… now he's in the Order and everything."**

"**Poisonous toadstools don't change their spots," said Ron sagely. "Anyway I've always thought Dumbledore was cracked trusting Snape. Where's the evidence he ever really stopped working for You-Know-Who?"**

Snape became slightly pale. No. No one was going to find out _that._

"**I think Dumbledore's probably got plenty of evidence, even if he doesn't share it with you, Ron," snapped Hermione.**

"**Oh, shut up, the pair of you," said Harry heavily, as Ron opened his mouth to argue back.**

**Hermione and Ron both froze, looking angry and offended.**

"Sorry", harry mumbled, very embarrassed now. He knew his behaviour was the worst, and he knew that it was not fair to have a go at his friends just because he was having a bad day.

"**Can't you give it a rest?" said Harry. "You're always having a go at each other, it's driving me mad." And abandoning his shepherd's pie, he swung his schoolbag back over his shoulder and left them sitting there.**

**He walked up the marble staircase two steps at a time, past the many students hurrying towards lunch. The anger that had just flared so unexpectedly still blazed inside him, and the vision of Ron and Hermione's shocked faces afforded him a sense of deep satisfaction. Serve them right, he thought, why can't they give it a rest… bickering all the time… it's enough to drive anyone up the wall…**

Now Harry really felt ashamed. He avoided everybody else's looks and just continued reading, as if nothing had happened.

**He passed the large picture of Sir Cadogan the knight on a landing; Sir Cadogan drew his sword and brandished it fiercely at Harry, who ignored him.**

"**Come back, you scurvy dog! Stand fast and fight!" yelled Sir Cadogan in a muffled voice from behind his visor, but Harry merely walked on and when Sir Cadogan attempted to follow him by running into a neighbouring picture, he was rebuffed by its inhabitant, a large and angry-looking wolfhound.**

**That made everyone smile a little bit, not much tough. They where still worrieng about Harry.**

**Harry spent the rest of the lunch hour sitting alone underneath the trapdoor at the top of North Tower. Consequently, he was the first to ascend the silver ladder that led to Sibyll Trelawney's classroom when the bell rang.**

**After Potions, Divination was Harry's least favourite class, which was due mainly to Professor Trelawney's habit of predicting his premature death every few lessons. A thin woman, heavily draped in shawls and glittering with strings of beads, she always reminded Harry of some kind of insect, with her glasses hugely magnifying her eyes. She was busy putting copies of battered leather-bound books on each of the spindly little tables with which her room was littered when Harry entered the room, but the light cast by the lamps covered by scarves and the low-burning, sickly-scented fire was so dim she appeared not to notice him as he took a seat in the shadows.**

_At least one good thing happens to me that day_, Harry thought sighing.

**The rest of the class arrived over the next five minutes. Ron emerged from the trapdoor, looked around carefully, spotted Harry and made directly for him, or as directly as he could while having to wend his way between tables, chairs and overstuffed pouffes.**

"**Hermione and me have stopped arguing," he said, sitting down beside Harry.**

"**Good," grunted Harry.**

"**But Hermione says she thinks it would be nice if you stopped taking out your temper on us," said Ron.**

"I'm sorry", Harry mumbled again.

"We know", Hermione sighed. "Just try not to act that way."

"**I'm not -"**

**"I'm just passing on the message," said Ron, talking over him. "But I reckon she's right. It's not our fault how Seamus and Snape treat you."**

"It isn't, I know", Harry apologised for the up tenth time.

**"I never said it -"**

"**Good-day," said Professor Trelawney in her usual misty, dreamy voice, and Harry broke off, again feeling both annoyed and slightly ashamed of himself. "And welcome back to Divination. I have, of course, been following your fortunes most carefully over the holidays, and am delighted to see that you have all returned to Hogwarts safely - as, of course, I knew you would.**

"Of course", Ron laughed.

The corner's of Professor McGonnagalls mouth twitched slightly.

Everyone knew she wasn't big fan of Divination.

"**You will find on the tables before you copies of The Dream Oracle, by Inigo Imago. Dream ****interpretation is a most important means of divining the future and one that may very probably be tested in your OWL. Not, of course, that I believe examination passes or failures are of the remotest importance when it comes to the sacred art of divination. If you have the Seeing Eye, certificates and grades matter very little. However, the Headmaster likes you to sit the examination, so…"**

**Her voice trailed away delicately, leaving them all in no doubt that Professor Trelawney considered her subject above such sordid matters as examinations.**

"**Turn, please, to the introduction and read what Imago has to say on the matter of dream interpretation. Then, divide into pairs. Use The Dream Oracle to interpret each others most recent dreams. Carry on."**

**The one good thing to be said for this lesson was that it was not a double period. By the time they had all finished reading the introduction of the book, they had barely ten minutes left for dream interpretation. At the table next to Harry and Ron, Dean had paired up with Neville, who immediately embarked on a long-winded explanation of a nightmare involving a pair of giant scissors wearing his grandmother's best hat; Harry and Ron merely looked at each other glumly.**

"**I never remember my dreams," said Ron, "you say one."**

"**You must remember one of them," said Harry impatiently.**

**He was not going to share his dreams with anyone. He knew perfectly well what his regular nightmare about a graveyard meant, he did not need Ron or Professor Trelawney or the stupid Dream Oracle to tell him.**

"**Well, I dreamed I was playing Quidditch the other night," said Ron, screwing up his face in an effort to remember. "What d'you reckon that means?"**

**"Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something," said Harry, turning the pages of The Dream Oracle without interest.**

Everyone laughed at that.

"Wow, who would have thought you had it in you Harry", the twins said, admiringly.

**It was very dull work looking up bits of dreams in the Oracle and Harry was not cheered up when Professor Trelawney set them the task of keeping a dream diary for a month as homework. When the bell went, he and Ron led the way back down the ladder, Ron grumbling loudly.**

"**D'you realize how much homework we've got already? Binns set us a foot-and-a-half-long essay on giant wars, Snape wants a foot on the use of moonstones, and now we've got a month's dream diary from Trelawney! Fred and George weren't wrong about OWL year, were they? That Umbridge woman had better not give us any…"**

"She probably give you even more", Lupin said darkly.

**When they entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom they found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teacher's desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and the black velvet bow on top of her head. Harry was again reminded forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad.**

"Flattering description, harry", Ron laughed.

**The class was quiet as it entered the room; Professor Umbridge was, as yet, an unknown quantity and nobody knew how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be.**

"**Well, good afternoon!" she said, when finally the whole class had sat down.**

**A few people mumbled "good afternoon" in reply.**

"**Tut, tut," said Professor Umbridge. "That won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge'. One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!"**

"**Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," they chanted back at her.**

"**There, now," said Professor Umbridge sweetly. "That wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please."**

All of the student's from Hogwarts sighed. They knew that 'wands away' usually meant a boring lesson.

**Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order "wands away" had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting. Harry shoved his wand back inside his bag and pulled out quill, ink and parchment. Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once:**

**Defense Against the Dark Arts A Return to Basic Principles**

"**Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it?" stated Professor Umbridge, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her.**

_Here she goes, _Lupin thought._ I bet now she is going to give them a lecture on werewolves and other 'halfbreeds'._

"**The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your OWL year.**

"**You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centerd, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please."**

**She rapped the blackboard again; the first message vanished and was replaced by: Course Aims:**

**1. Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic.**

**2. Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic can legally be used.**

**3. Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.**

"What does that mean", Hermione said horrified. She isn't even letting us do anything practically?"

No one answered. They were all to busy wondering how any student would survive out there without a proper education in DADA these days.

**For a couple of minutes the room was full of the sound of scratching quills on parchment. When everyone had copied down Professor Umbridge's three course aims she asked, "Has everybody got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?"**

**There was a dull murmur of assent throughout the class.**

"**I think we'll try that again," said Professor Umbridge. "When I ask you a question, I should like you to reply, 'Yes, Professor Umbridge', or 'No, Professor Umbridge'. So: has everyone got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?"**

"**Yes, Professor Umbridge," rang through the room.**

"**Good," said Professor Umbridge. "I should like you to turn to page five and read 'Chapter One, Basics for Beginners'. There will be no need to talk."**

**Professor Umbridge left the blackboard and settled herself in the chair behind the teacher's desk, observing them all closely with those pouchy toad's eyes. Harry turned to page five of his copy of Defensive Magical Theory and started to read.**

**It was desperately dull, quite as bad as listening to Professor Binns. He felt his concentration sliding away from him; he had soon read the same line half a dozen times without taking in more than the first few words. Several silent minutes passed. Next to him, Ron was absent-mindedly turning his quill over and over in his fingers, staring at the same spot on the page. Harry looked right and received a surprise to shake him out of his torpor. **

**Hermione had not even opened her copy of Defensive Magical Theory. She was staring fixedly at Professor Umbridge with her hand in the air.**

**Harry could not remember Hermione ever neglecting to read when instructed to, or indeed resisting the temptation to open any book that came under her nose.**

Some people chuckled at that. The always studious Hermione.

Hermione herself blushed.

**He looked at her enquiringly, but she merely shook her head slightly to indicate that she was not about to answer questions, and continued to stare at Professor Umbridge, who was looking just as resolutely in another direction.**

Everyone leaned forward a bit. They were all interested to see how this was going to end.

**After several more minutes had passed, however, Harry was not the only one watching Hermione. The chapter they had been instructed to read was so tedious that more and more people were choosing to watch Hermione's mute attempt to catch Professor Umbridge's eye rather than struggle on with 'Basics for Beginners'.**

'Well', Ron said, 'that is certainly more interesting'

**When more than half the class were staring at Hermione rather than at their books, Professor Umbridge seemed to decide that she could ignore the situation no longer.**

"**Did you want to ask something about the chapter, dear?" she asked Hermione, as though she had only just noticed her.**

"**Not about the chapter, no," said Hermione.**

'You show her', the twins chorused.

"**Well, we're reading just now," said Professor Umbridge, showing her small pointed teeth. "If you have other queries we can deal with them at the end of class."**

"**I've got a query about your course aims," said Hermione.**

**Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows.**

"**And your name is?"**

"**Hermione Granger," said Hermione.**

"**Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully," said Professor Umbridge in a voice of determined sweetness.**

Harry and Ron shook their heads. Never act as if Hermione was stupid. Or you were in big trouble. They found that out long ago.

"**Well, I don't," said Hermione bluntly. "There's nothing written up there about using defensive spells."**

The adults frowned. This wasn't good. They knew that it would be bad, but really, that they wouldn't be learning how to use defensive spells? That wasn't just ridiculous, it was plain dangerous.

**There was a short silence in which many members of the class turned their heads to frown at the three course aims still written on the blackboard.**

"**Using defensive spells?" Professor Umbridge repeated with a little laugh. "Why, I can't imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell, Miss Granger. You surely aren't expecting to be attacked during class?"**

'I think she is talking about the time she spends outside of class', Mrs. Weasley hissed through clenched teeth. Though she didn't want any of her children to fight in this war she wanted them at least to to know how to defend themselves.

"**We're not going to use magic?" Ron exclaimed loudly.**

"**Students raise their hands when they wish to speak in my class, Mr. -?"**

"**Weasley," said Ron, thrusting his hand into the air.**

**Professor Umbridge, smiling still more widely, turned her back on him. Harry and Hermione immediately raised their hands too. Professor Umbridge's pouchy eyes lingered on Harry for a moment before she addressed Hermione.**

'She seriously thinks that Hermione is a better choice in that case? She is probably even worse, because she talks in a way that will make Umbridge feel stupid. No offence to you harry or you Hermione'.

Lupin shook his head.

'Not taken', Hermione and Harry both said.

"**Yes, Miss Granger? You wanted to ask something else?"**

"**Yes," said Hermione. "Surely the whole point of Defense Against the Dark Arts is to practice defensive spells?"**

"**Are you a Ministry-trained educational expert, Miss Granger?" asked Professor Umbridge, in her falsely sweet voice.**

"**No, but -"**

"**Well then, I'm afraid you are not qualified to decide what the 'whole point' of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new program of study. **

'apparently not'.

If they hadn't seen Professor McGonnagalls lips moving, no one would have believed that she said that. The twins gave her an impressed look.

**You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way -"**

"**What use is that?" said Harry loudly. "If we're going to be attacked, it won't be in a -"**

"**Hand, Mr. Potter!" sang Professor Umbridge.**

**Harry thrust his fist in the air. Again, Professor Umbridge promptly turned away from him, but now several other people had their hands up, too.**

The twins leaned forward in eager. They wanted to know how to annoy that women, how to torture her until death, or rather her departure ( Departure? Hope I got that right :D)

"**And your name is?" Professor Umbridge said to Dean.**

"**Dean Thomas."**

"**Well, Mr. Thomas?"**

"**Well, it's like Harry said, isn't it?" said Dean. "If we're going to be attacked, it won't be risk ****free."**

"**I repeat," said Professor Umbridge, smiling in a very irritating fashion at Dean, "do you expect to be attacked during my classes?"**

"**No, but -"**

**Professor Umbridge talked over him. "I do not wish to criticize the way things have been run in this school," she said, **

A lot of snorts and 'yeah, that's likely's filled the room.

**an unconvincing smile stretching her wide mouth, "but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed - not to mention," she gave a nasty little laugh, "extremely dangerous half-breeds."**

Sirius hands were balled into fist and he shook with anger. Harry, Ron and Hermione were mirroring him. Everybody else was either very red (or maroon in the case of the Weasley's)

or pale because of their anger.

Only Snape's lips curled in slight amusement.

"**If you mean Professor Lupin," piped up Dean angrily, "he was the best we ever -"**

'Yeah, he was', everyone who had ever had classes with Lupin agreed with Dean.

Lupin welt a warm feeling in his chest. It was so good to know that some people really didn't care that he was a werewolf.

"**Hand, Mr. Thomas! As I was saying - you have been introduced to spells that have been complex, inappropriate to your age group and potentially lethal. You have been frightened into believing that you are likely to meet Dark attacks every other day -"**

"**No we haven't," Hermione said, "we just -"**

"**Your hand is not up, Miss Granger!"**

**Hermione put up her hand. Professor Umbridge turned away from her.**

"**It is my understanding that my predecessor not only performed illegal curses in front of you, he actually performed them on you."**

"**Well, he turned out to be a maniac, didn't he?" said Dean hotly. "Mind you, we still learned loads."**

Harry nodded in approval of Deans words. Even though he hated to think that one of Voldemorts followers taught him, he had to admit that he had been taught well.

Moody on the other Hand looked very grim. He still didn't get over the fact that he hadn't been able to fight the imposter and that because of that, the whole school, but more importantly Harry had gotten in so much danger. That boy was important for the war and he knew it.

"**Your hand is not up, Mr. Thomas!" trilled Professor Umbridge. "Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about.**

'I cannot believe her', Hermione screeched. 'She can't be serious. How are we supposed to get through or OWL's and NEWT's. And lets not forget the fact that Voldemort is out there, murdering, attacking and kidnapping!'

**And your name is?" she added, staring at Parvati, whose hand had just shot up.**

"**Parvati Patil, and isn't there a practical bit in our Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL? Aren't we supposed to show that we can actually do the counter-curses and things?"**

"**As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions," said Professor Umbridge dismissively.**

Professor McGonnagal was not the only one who shook her head in disbelieve. What had the magic world come to? That the Ministry, out of fear of an army of students, wouldn't teach students how to defend themselves?

"**Without ever practising them beforehand?" said Parvati incredulously. "Are you telling us that the first time we'll get to do the spells will be during our exam?"**

'I believe she is', Hermione said quietly, shaking with rage.

"**I repeat, as long as you have studied the theory hard enough -"**

"**And what good's theory going to be in the real world?" said Harry loudly, his fist in the air again.**

**Professor Umbridge looked up.**

"**This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world," she said softly.**

"**So we're not supposed to be prepared for what's waiting for us out there?"**

"**There is nothing waiting out there, Mr. Potter."**

"**Oh, yeah?" said Harry. His temper, which seemed to have been bubbling just beneath the surface all day, was reaching boiling point.**

There where a lot of groans and sighs. Everyone hoped Harry wouldn't let his temper get the best of him. That would only cause more problems.

"**Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?" enquired Professor Umbridge in a horribly honeyed voice.**

"**Hmm, let's think…" said Harry in a mock thoughtful voice. "Maybe… Lord Voldemort!"**

'Harry!', Hermione moaned.

Why can't this boy hold his tongue. Professor McGonagall had a hard time keeping herself from shaking her head at Harry.

'Just like his father', Snape sneered, his face in an ugly scowl.

'Yes', Sirius said proudly, 'Exactly like his father'

Harry didn't know how to respond so he just read on.

**Ron gasped; Lavender Brown uttered a little scream; Neville slipped sideways off his stool.**

**Professor Umbridge, however, did not flinch. She was staring at Harry with a grimly satisfied expression on her face.**

"**Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter."**

**The classroom was silent and still. Everyone was staring at either Umbridge or Harry.**

"**Now, let me make a few things quite plain."**

**Professor Umbridge stood up and leaned towards them, her stubby-fingered hands splayed on her desk.**

"**You have been told that a certain Dark wizard has returned from the dead -"**

"**He wasn't dead," said Harry angrily, "but yeah, he's returned!"**

'"**Mr-Potter-you-have-already-lost-your-house-ten-points-do-not-make-matters-worse-for yourself," said Professor Umbridge in one breath without looking at him. "As I was saying, ****you have been informed that a certain Dark wizard is at large once again. This is a lie."**

"**It is NOT a lie!" said Harry. "I saw him, I fought him!"**

'Harry, stop. This is only going to get you into problems. For Godness sake, just let it go!'

Again, Hermione shook her head at him.

Harry felt his anger rising. 'Let it go? They're not admitting he is back Hermione. They are not fighting him. How on earth am I supposed to let it go?'

"**Detention, Mr. Potter!" said Professor Umbridge triumphantly. "Tomorrow evening. Five o'clock. My office. I repeat, this is a lie. The Ministry of Magic guarantees that you are not in danger from any Dark wizard. If you are still worried, by all means come and see me outside class hours. If someone is alarming you with fibs about reborn Dark wizards, I would like to hear about it. I am here to help. I am your friend. And now, you will kindly continue your reading. Page five, 'Basics for Beginners'."**

**Professor Umbridge sat down behind her desk. Harry, however, stood up. Everyone was staring at him; Seamus looked half-scared, half-fascinated.**

"**Harry, no!" Hermione whispered in a warning voice, tugging at his sleeve, but Harry jerked his arm out of her reach.**

"**So, according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord, did he?" Harry asked, his voice shaking.**

**There was a collective intake of breath from the class, for none of them, apart from Ron and Hermione, had ever heard Harry talk about what had happened on the night Cedric had died.**

**They stared avidly from Harry to Professor Umbridge, who had raised her eyes and was staring at him without a trace of a fake smile on her face.**

"**Cedric Diggory's death was a tragic accident," she said coldly.**

"**It was murder," said Harry. He could feel himself shaking. He had hardly spoken to anyone about this, least of all thirty eagerly listening classmates. "Voldemort killed him and you know it."**

**Professor Umbridge's face was quite blank. For a moment, Harry thought she was going to scream at him. Then she said, in her softest, most sweetly girlish voice, "Come here, Mr. Potter, dear."**

'Not good, not good', the twins murmured. They knew that if a teacher talked like that, you were in big trouble.

**He kicked his chair aside, strode around Ron and Hermione and up to the teacher's desk. He could feel the rest of the class holding its breath. He felt so angry he did not care what happened next.**

**Professor Umbridge pulled a small roll of pink parchment out of her handbag, stretched it out on the desk, dipped her quill into a bottle of ink and started scribbling, hunched over so that Harry could not see what she was writing. Nobody spoke. After a minute or so she rolled up the parchment and tapped it with her wand; it sealed itself seamlessly so that he could not open it.**

"**Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear," said Professor Umbridge, holding out the note to him. He took it from her without saying a word, turned on his heel and left the room, not even looking back at Ron and Hermione, slamming the classroom door shut behind him. He walked very fast along the corridor, the note to McGonagall clutched tight in his hand, and turning a corner walked slap into Peeves the poltergeist, a wide-mouthed little man floating on his back in midair, juggling several inkwells.**

"**Why it's Potty Wee Potter!" cackled Peeves, allowing two of the inkwells to fall to the ground where they smashed and spattered the walls with ink; Harry jumped backwards out of the way with a snarl.**

"**Get out of it, Peeves."**

"**Oooh, Crackpot's feeling cranky" said Peeves, pursuing Harry along the corridor, leering as he zoomed along above him. "What is it this time, my fine Potty friend? Hearing voices? Seeing visions? Speaking in -" Peeves blew a gigantic raspberry "— tongues?"**

"**I said, leave me ALONE!" Harry shouted, running down the nearest flight of stairs, but Peeves merely slid down the banister on his back beside him.**

"**Oh, most think he's barking, the potty wee lad, But some are more kindly and think he's just sad, but Peevesy knows better and says that he's mad — "**

"**SHUT UP!"**

**A door to his left flew open and Professor McGonagall emerged from her office looking grim and slightly harassed.**

"**What on earth are you shouting about, Potter?" she snapped, as Peeves cackled gleefully and zoomed out of sight. '"Why aren't you in class?"**

"**I've been sent to see you," said Harry stiffly.**

The twins looked at Harry, shaking their heads.

'You have got to learn so much Harry'

"**Sent? What do you mean, sent?"**

**He held out the note from Professor Umbridge. Professor McGonagall took it from him, frowning, slit it open with a tap of her wand, stretched it out and began to read. Her eyes zoomed from side to side behind their square spectacles as she read what Umbridge had written, and with each line they became narrower.**

"**Come in here, Potter."**

**He followed her inside her study. The door closed automatically behind him.**

"**Well?" said Professor McGonagall, rounding on him. "Is this true?"**

"**Is what true?" Harry asked, rather more aggressively than he had intended. **

'That was probably a Nargel. Nasty little things they are', Luna said dreamily.

**"Professor?" he added, in an attempt to sound more polite.**

"**Is it true that you shouted at Professor Umbridge?"**

"**Yes," said Harry.**

"**You called her a liar?"**

"**Yes."**

'Well, she is'

"**You told her He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back?"**

"**Yes."**

'Well, he is'

**Professor McGonagall sat down behind her desk, watching Harry closely. Then she said, "Have a biscuit, Potter."**

'WHAT ?'

Everyone looked at Professor McGonnagal confused.

"**Have - what?"**

Snape shook his head. Why didn't the boy just do what he was told to?

"**Have a biscuit," she repeated impatiently, indicating a tartan tin of cookies lying on top of one of the piles of papers on her desk. "And sit down."**

**There had been a previous occasion when Harry, expecting to be caned by Professor McGonagall, had instead been appointed by her to the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He sank into a chair opposite her and helped himself to a Ginger Newt, feeling just as confused and wrong footed as he had done on that occasion.**

**Professor McGonagall set down Professor Umbridge's note and looked very seriously at Harry.**

"**Potter, you need to be careful."**

**Harry swallowed his mouthful of Ginger Newt and stared at her. Her tone of voice was not at all what he was used to; it was not brisk, crisp and stern; it was low and anxious and somehow much more human than usual.**

There where some stiffened laughters who silenced at instant at one of Mrs. Weasleys glares.

"**Misbehavior in Dolores Umbridge's class could cost you much more than house points and a detention."**

"**What do you -?"**

"**Potter, use your common sense," snapped Professor McGonagall, with an abrupt return to ****her usual manner. "You know where she comes from, you must know to whom she is reporting."**

**The bell rang for the end of the lesson. Overhead and all around came the elephantine sounds of hundreds of students on the move.**

"**It says here she's given you detention every evening this week, starting tomorrow," Professor McGonagall said, looking down at Umbridge's note again.**

"**Every evening this week!" Harry repeated, horrified. "But, Professor, couldn't you -?"**

"**No, I couldn't," said Professor McGonagall flatly.**

"**But -"**

"**She is your teacher and has every right to give you detention. You will go to her room at five o'clock tomorrow for the first one. Just remember: tread carefully around Dolores Umbridge."**

"**But I was telling the truth!" said Harry, outraged. "Voldemort is back, you know he is; Professor Dumbledore knows he is -"**

"**For heaven's sake, Potter!" said Professor McGonagall, straightening her glasses angrily (she had winced horribly when he had used Voldemort's name). **

Professor Dumbledore shook his head. He had long ago given up trying to get her to call Voldemort by his proper name.

"**Do you really think this is about truth or lies? It's about keeping your head down and your temper under control!"**

'Not going to happen', Ron sighed.

**She stood up, nostrils wide and mouth very thin, and Harry stood up, too.**

"**Have another biscuit," she said irritably, thrusting the tin at him.**

"**No, thanks," said Harry coldly.**

"**Don't be ridiculous," she snapped.**

**He took one.**

"**Thanks," he said grudgingly.**

"**Didn't you listen to Dolores Umbridge's speech at the start-of-term feast, Potter?"**

"**Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah… she said… progress will be prohibited or… well, it meant that… that the Ministry of Magic is trying to interfere at Hogwarts."**

**Professor McGonagall eyed him closely for a moment, then sniffed, walked around her desk and held open the door for him.**

"**Well, I'm glad you listen to Hermione Granger at any rate," she said, pointing him out of her **Hermione blushed at that last statement.

'Well, that's it', Harry said, as no one spoke.

'Could we read another one?', Ron looked at his mother pleadingly. Just one, please mum!'

Mrs. Weasley sighed. 'Well, another one should be okay, but then everyone will have to go to bed.'

**Again, I'm really sorry I didn't update for so lang. I was more than halfway done with this chapter and than I didn't have the time and the spirit to finish it. So PLEASE review. It doesn't have to be long, just so I know what you think :D**


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